Icon Promo

Next week is Icon. Bryon and I will be playing guest liaison to one of Bryon's favorite artists Heather Bruton, and one of the most personable writers I know, Jim Hines.

Your chance to see these wonderful folks is at Icon, which is held at the Cedar Rapids Marriot. I have many fond memories of AnimeIowas past at this place. It's a very luxurious hotel.

I'll also be there. Jim and I are doing a couple of panels together:

Saturday:
Promotion and Online Networking (are you watching me live the panel RIGHT NOW??)

Sunday:
Survival Tips for Beginning Writers

Friday, there'll be a book group discussion of Jim's Goblin series that I'll be leading.

AND

I read shorts Saturday, at 10:30. Come and hear The Love Song of Oliver Toddle and I'll see if I can avoid tearing up when I read it. There will also be two comedic and one horror piece.

In sum, then. Icon. Be there or be a rectangular thing.

Catherine

Mirrored from Writer Tamago.

Looking Through the Small End

Interesting times.

I thought I was almost recovered from the Viable Paradise cold (the gift that keeps on giving), but today seems kind of relapsy. I'm not kidding anyone as I putter at work with little to no enthusiasm. I may even show my literature students a film as a stop gap.

But I am almost caught up at work. Killed two major projects brutally like baby seals this week, which means after I've finished some odds and ends, I'll be able to norm tests, call references, and start observations. Ohh, baybee!

***

You are, however, here for my writing life, so let me tell you what will happen next week when the writing life kicks back in.

Uncle Jim MacDonald, of the incredible Doyle and MacDonald duo, gave me a piece of advice about writing at Viable Paradise that will help me get out of the troll meeting conundrum. Some of you may have used this trick yourselves.

Uncle Jim said that he writes his story's climax, see who's left standing, and work his way back from there.

I have that material from the draft I wrote earlier this year. I know who's left standing in almost every story arc in the troll story. If I brainstorm backwards and see what I need to build to get to that climax, write it, and pay attention to any more interesting wrinkles that come up, well, I think I can do this better than before.

Right now, there's a lot of boredom coming out if I do this linearly, and with Uncle Jim's method, I will see what things I must include to make sure the climax happens.

I'm a little nervous about writing out of order, but I will invoke the patron saint of writing out of order, Julia Rios, and hope she does not abandon her petitioner.

By the way, Uncle Jim has other valuable tips on Absolute Write, at Learn Writing with Uncle Jim.

Class is in session.

Catherine

Mirrored from Writer Tamago.