I’ll allow myself a bit of cynicism in this moment and just point out how hard that is to imagine sometimes, especially with today’s political / social climate in general. But this advice, repeated often by one of my creative writing professors in college, has a good point to make. If you don’t think your…
I have a confession to make. For the longest time, I was a reading purist. And by that, I mean if I heard that you listened to audio books every day, I would not have considered you a “reader,” or even a book lover by any means. To me, the act of reading was the…
A super fun story that has all the staples of a children’s fantasy: snarky princesses, sneezing dragons, forbidden forests, and riddle-spouting magical beasts. The trouble never gets too dark, and the cheerfulness never gets too corny. A book that I can imagine reading aloud to any special little kid(s) in my life.
One of the things I’ve come to notice about my favorite stories is their ability to take contrasting subjects and make them mingle and harmonize. This can be found in characters we’ve seen for decades: the good girl with the bad boy; Beauty and her Beast; the average IQ tagging along with the renowned genius.…
I recently had this question posed to me by a friend regarding a short story I have been writing: “What’s easier: the first draft, or the second draft?” And in pure C.M. fashion, my response was: “It depends on the day.” The first draft, I explained, is “you telling yourself the story”—a quote that is…