The Blank Page
The blank page strikes fear into writers, but too often for the wrong reason. These writers (perhaps you?) see it as something to fill with cleverness and excellence that will excite the senses and convert the masses. They consider it a space to stuff with characters and plots and subplots and twists and tension and conflict and resolution. To them, the blank page is a empty thing that demands to be filled. And when it doesn’t get its way, it mocks them. It belittles them. It questions their writing talent. Their commitment. Their masculinity. Their femininity. Their parenting skills. Their love of Hemingway. Their selfish use of oxygen. The blank page is evidence of an empty heart. Or mind. Or (gasp) soul. This is a terrifying idea. And so they scrounge and...
Things I’ve Said on Twitter
This is a totally lame excuse for a post. It’s just a bunch of stuff I’ve tweeted over the past couple of months. Some of you have already been subjected to this madness and would rather be pecked to death by a sparrow than read it again. This isn’t for you. This is for those of you who don’t tweet…or who were too distracted by tweets about Justin Bieber to notice mine. Many of these have something to do with writing. The rest have more to do with my personal psychoses. Feel free to offer your diagnosis in the comments. While you amuse yourselves with this, I’ll go write a real post. *Note of warning to those of you with severe OCD: These tweets are almost all in chronological order (from most recent to…not so recent). Did...
The Truth Below the True
I’m not going to tell you my true story. Not just because it’s decidedly uneventful for the first four decades or so (apart from the usual stuff – saying clever things as a toddler, enduring the “let’s get Steve and his older brother matching sailor suits, won’t that be cute?” miscues of otherwise wonderful parents, leaving home, getting married, having kids, taking the occasional vacation, discovering unique ways to incorporate bacon into daily life), but because some of the story, particularly the season that begins just after those first four decades, features choices and consequences and events that, if published, could end up hurting Real Life People. No matter how redemptive the story might ultimately be, a memoir...
From the Office of Admissions
Let’s not call them confessions, okay? Because that reeks of guilt. And for many of the following, I feel no guilt whatsoever. I admit… I am immediately turned off by best-selling books because I hold fast to an erroneous belief that for something to be popular, it must cater to the lowest common denominator and I prefer to believe I am far above that line. I am not above that line. I pick up a book based on its cover and only rule out a possible purchase if the blurb on the back bores me to tears. Otherwise, I’ll buy it and give the author every opportunity to surprise me. I read more “debut” novels than any other category and am frequently pleasantly surprised. I believe the sophomore slump for writers is usually more about lack of...
Why Are You Reading This?
Most blog posts save the Really Important Lesson for the last paragraph. I’m just going to cut’n'paste it right here: I write not because I “have to,” but because I want to be read. Thanks for reading. Skip to the bottom of this post and you’ll see the very same words. Are you still reading? Why? Anything written between the first and last word will merely be used to support the Really Important Lesson noted above. You won’t be surprised to discover that I have a few theories on why you’re still reading. Feel free to skip these: You think I’m trying to trick you. You know from the past that I sometimes mess with your mind in this space and wonder if I’m doing it again. Even now you’re reasonably certain...
10 Reasons I Don’t Want to Be a Bestselling Author
1. I’ll have to purchase a whole new wardrobe from somewhere other than Wal-Mart so people don’t accuse me of wearing my false modesty like a neon sign. 2. Jerry Bruckheimer will want to add explosions to the movie adaptation of my bittersweet love story. 3. I’ll be the guest who gets bumped from Letterman when his lovefest interview with Julia Roberts runs long. 4. Struggling authors will hold quarterly “Hate Stephen Parolini” days to coincide with the receipt of their royalty statements. 5. An interviewer will ask me questions like “Did you know you had written a bestseller?” and “What’s your secret to writing a bestseller?” over and over again until I finally lose the very patience that helped me to complete a novel in the first place and...
