Stupid Writing Advice – Write What You Know July 21, 2018

Too true!

Jason's Blog

The gem of a piece of writing advice has been floating around since stylus was first put to clay tablet: write what you know.

So, if you’re a psychologist, write about psychology. If you’re a filmmaker, write about filmmaking. If you’re a teacher, write about teaching.

The problem with writing what you know is the ease with which you can get caught up in writing about the minutia of your subject matter. I wrote a three-hundred-plus page novel about a teacher that was so detailed on the subject of teaching that it bored the pants off of anyone who made the mistake of agreeing to beta read it. It was terrible. I had to abandon the manuscript. Out of all those pages, I managed to salvage one chapter and publish it as a short story. Not a great showing for a year’s work.

Here’s the link to that story, if…

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Top 100 Movie Review: #30 – Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) July 20, 2018

Humphrey Bogart is quite possibly my favorite actor of all time, and this is a favorite among his work for me.

The Top 100 Reviews

The Case Study of Greed

Humphrey Bogart’s character epitomizes what can befall us all: the complete perversion of our sensibilities by unchecked avarice. 

Bob Curtin (Tim Holt), Fred C. Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart), and Howard (Walter Huston).

American Film Institute Ranking: #30/100
Academy Awards: Best Director and Best Supporting Actor for Jim Huston and Walter Huston — a father-son combo.
My Rating: 

It was obvious early on what this movie was going to be about: Greed = Bad.

By showing the cards early, I didn’t know if I would be interested, especially if the moral teaching was going to be heavy-handed. My concerns were ungrounded and the movie addressed them with a counterintuitive solution. Instead of using fast-pace or subtlety, Jim Houston takes the approach of a staggered walk, slowly allowing Fred C. Dobbs (played by Humphrey Bogart) descend into is madness over the course of a couple hours.

What this…

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8 Great Superhero Anthologies

The Good Fight series is a good one. I love Ian’s stories, too.

Kristen Brand

I love a good anthology. Getting a dozen stories in one collection, discovering new authors, diving into new worlds—what’s not to like? Fans of superhero fiction are particularly lucky, because there are a lot of good superhero anthologies out there. In honor of the release of Heroes and Villains, the new boxed set that contains Hero Status along with nine other novels, I want to spotlight four of my favorite anthologies and four on my to-read list.

Wild Cards

Back in print after a decade, expanded with new original material, this is the first volume of George R. R. Martin’s Wild cards shared-world series.

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WOLF NOTES: An Uncommon Interview – Samantha Bryant July 16, 2018

I’m so pleased to have been invited to interview with A.L. Kaplan!

alkaplan

 Welcome to WOLF NOTES, where interview questions stray from the rest of the pack. It’s nice to know the usual stuff like where an author gets their inspiration and why they write, but sometimes we need a little fun in our lives.

Samantha Bryant is a middle school Spanish teacher by day and a mom and novelist by night. That makes her a superhero all the time. Her secret superpower is finding lost things. When she’s not writing or teaching, Samantha enjoys time with her family, watching old movies, baking, reading, and going places. Her favorite gift is tickets (to just about anything). 

Wolf: Middle school is a tough age to teach. Thank you for your patience. If you could be any animal in the universe, what would it be and why?

Samantha: I’d like to be a large dog, especially if I could be a pet dog…

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