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While browsing through Stephen King books today, looking for his book On Writing , I came across this thought… Writing controlled fiction is called "plotting." Buckling the seatbelt and letting the story take over… that is called "storytelling." Storytelling is as natural as breathing. Plotting is the literary version of artificial respiration. I found this quite reassuring, and kind of exhilarating… I've never been good at plotting out my stories, though I've lost count of the classes I've taken and books I've read that recommend (or flat out require) it. Frankly, buckling in and letting the story take over is how I've written everything I've ever felt good about. Now I've got some backup for my lack of plotting. Let's face it, Stephen King knows a little bit about storytelling. Ironically, I found this in the intro to 'Salem's Lot (probably still my favorite Stephen King novel ever) and not in On Writing. But that ju...

A few months ago, the random question "I wonder if my blog has been bad for my writing" ran through my head. I'd started blogging several years ago as an answer to journaling. I've never been very good at keeping a journal… I tend to start them under duress ("you're a writer, you're supposed to keep a journal!"), continue plugging away at them for a short while (usually measured in weeks… occasionally ramping up to a month or two) and then abandoning the whole thing as just too much trouble. Whether vanity, or the same feeling that leaves me unlikely to cook dinner if I'm the only one that's going to be eating it, I tend to find keeping a journal a tedious exercise — if I'm the only one that's ever going to read the thing, and it's unlikely I ever WILL, then what's the point?!? Blogging seemed to make sense as an alternative to journaling, as it provides a place to go and write about whatever's on your mind, but has a ...