See full size chart of a fiction publishing tragedy rendered through the metaphor of a tragic voyage.
" I clicked on an advert on Facebook and came to your site. And proceeded to read through your entries like the creeper I sometimes am. I think you should just publish your blog entries. You know how "the Princess Diaries" got adapted for a movie. Yours would be so much better. (And sorry to compare you to such a worthless book.) Anyways, just a thought. " Read more by Christine on To Publish a Sumerian Novel and other 2010 Resolutions
"Your Muse is clearly feeling passive-aggressive (what self-respecting Muse wouldn't, when forced to regurgitate Marketing copy for an enterprise software brochure?) - it's throwing things (like Spanish dictionaries) at you, hoping you'll notice and stop neglecting it or feeding it menudo. If you thought throwing it in the washer was a bad move, you really ought to read "Eradicating Edna," my unfinished NaNoNovel over on Scribd. Now THAT's Muse abuse!" Read more by Holly Jahangiri on Murdering My Creative Writing Muse with Seven Random Words from Dictionary
"No, I meant THIS BLOG is interesting. (In my previous comment I should have put a full stop after "hunter" and capitalised the "i" in "interesting".) I may be a shameless self-promoter but I would never preempt the opinion or judgement of my readers -- both of them! Nor ever presume to instruct or dictate what people ought to think or feel. So, let me try again: I find this blog, unpublished guy's blog, interesting (and useful re the writerly trade). (Of course I'm pleased you find Cosmic Rapture interesting. Thanks for stopping by.) MM" Read more by masterymistery on Xtreme Creative Writing Styles: Hyperminimalism
Nearly serious fiction related diversions for the casual or more active writer.
Low-resolution picture of Slaughterhouse-Five movie poster.An example of a movie that was better than the book?
Often I find writing to be a thoroughly unenjoyable task. It's no wonder I haven't published anything when I can't finish writing anything. Even when I employ the Mashed Potato Method of fiction writing, I get stuck where I just start thinking too much. Right about step three when the writing starts getting more detail-oriented. Then the mental debates begin—about word choice, sentence order and structure, sorting through underlying meanings and symbolism that begin to surface and whether I should develop them. Completing the short story starts feeling like I am working on an assembly line gutting chickens with arthritic hands that are seizing up into in some malformed claws. Except in the case of writing it is my brain that gets knotted up.
Chicken Processing Assembly Line as Metaphor for Writing Cerebral Fictionsource: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-405105/Chicken-factory-workers-better-battery-hens.html
A random title for that next blockbuster novel or Pulitzer Prize short story:The Story of Quinton Plates