April 2013
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March 2013
8 posts
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The etymology of "rain check"
As we wrap up the first week of our Rain Check event, we wondered aloud at the etymology of the phrase “rain check”. So we did a little research and here’s what we found:
The term originated with baseball—isn’t that the starting point for everything in life? In the 1880s, when a game was cancelled due to inclement weather, it was standard practice to offer paying...
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We hear this is one of readers’ favorite passages from Sometimes We’re Always Real Same-Same A work truck rolls onto the bridge, maybe heading out of town to the new jail. The guy looks like an engineer from Anchorage. He pulls alongside us, slow, trying to pass, then stops. There are just a few inches between our vehicles. The guy folds in his side mirror. He rolls down his window,...
February 2013
2 posts
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January 2013
4 posts
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“Geye has perfected the push and pull of tension that keeps readers glued to the...”
– Rain Taxi on Peter Geye’s THE LIGHTHOUSE ROAD
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20 obsolete English words that should make a... →
Compliments of MatadorNetwork.com.
What’s your favorite? We like perissology.
December 2012
3 posts
12 English Letters That Didn’t Make the Alphabet
mentalflossr:
There are quite a few letters we tossed aside as our language grew.
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Good writing is in the details
Our final post in the Unbridled Best Advice series, is brought to you by New York Times Bestselling author, Edward Falco.
“Bring in the physical world. Establish a sense of place. Ground the reader.
I used to write with a three-by-five card taped to the lamp over my writing space. It read:
What’s it look like?
What’s it sound like?
What’s it smell like?
What’s it feel like?
What’s it...
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“Write from the heart, read above your head, associate with your betters, marry...”
– Best Unbridled Advice from the ever-so-wise-and-wonderful George Rabassa, author of such critically acclaimed books as The Wonder Singer and Miss Entropia and the Adam Bomb.
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“My favorite piece of writing advice hails from the children’s book author...”
– Deborah Noyes, author of Captivity offers her best Unbridled author advice.
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“Read every day to learn about others. Write every day to learn about yourself.”
– Claudia Sternbach, author of Reading Lips: A Memoir of Kisses. offers up her best Unbridled advice.
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Check your expectations at the door
Some of you may have already wrapped up your National Novel Writing Month experience—or, with only a few hundred words to go, may have decided to change time zones! As for us? We’re pressing on until midnight, ET. And so, our next to last Unbridled Best Advice post comes from author Jane Bradley.
“Writing fiction is a way of imposing a fantasy of order. In writing , for a moment, my...
November 2012
21 posts
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It's all there. Tap into it.
As National Novel Writing Month winds down, some beautiful advice from a soon-to-be-published Unbridled author, Elizabeth Huergo.
“The best advice I ever received about writing bridged the great divide between talk and walk. It came from a wonderful writer and teacher, Maxine Clair. Author of October Suite and Rattlebone, Clair’s work has that same quality I admire in Virginia Woolf and...
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Write always and often
Today’s post answering the question: What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever given or received?” comes from a debut author whose first novel will be published in May 2013.
“On the first day of an undergraduate writing class, Annie Dillard said that in order to write well we should toss out our houseplants, get rid of all pets, and forget any plans for a future...
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A writer is not a camera
As we’ve been doing all month long, we posed the question, “What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever given or received?” to one of our Unbridled authors, Colin Dickey. His best advice? Well, as often happens with Colin…he’s completely spun convention on its head… .
“The worst piece of writing advice I ever received was from an...
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Meet Moishe the Explainer
We are in the final days of National Novel Writing Month and, as your intensely focused efforts head into the homestretch, please permit us to briefly interrupt with our heartfelt thanks for allowing us to join you in your journey.
As you ramp up your final efforts, we will do the same. During the remaining days, we’ll post twice per day with even more Unbridled authors’ answer to...
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Go take a walk.
Today’s Unbridled answer to “What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever given or received?” comes from author Erica Abeel.
“A nice piece of writing advice I once received is that whenever you’re stuck on a scene and where it’s heading, go take a walk. Or just go brush your teeth or make tea — anything, so long as it takes you away, keeps you from bearing down on...
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Be the writer in the room.
We continue to share our authors’ responses to the question: “What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever given or received?” in support of writers everywhere, pouring it onto the page.
“The best writing advice? Dorothy Parker’s “Murder Your Darlings” can’t count since I spend most of my time involved in genocide.
When I was in high school, I took English 102 at a community...
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Go where the trouble is.
In the spirit of NaNoWriMo, we asked our Unbridled authors: “What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever given or received?” Today’s post is from Thad Nodine, author of Touch and Go.
For the first draft of a novel, here’s the best advice I know of: Get started. Go where the trouble is boiling over (not just brewing), because that is the domain of pain and love and redemption. Don’t wait...
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Just get to the end.
In the spirit of NaNoWriMo, we asked our Unbridled authors: “What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever given or received?” We were wowed by their feedback: no-nonsense, inspirational, and always entertaining. We continue our November share with Emily St. John Mandel.
“I’ve been given a couple of useful pieces of writing advice over the years, but if you’re presently...
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We bring you a commercial break. . .
From our daily writer-to-writer #NaNoWriMo “best advice” column. Here’s a wonderful short story by bestselling author Edward Falco {and, not coincidentally, our “Weekly Read”.}
THE ARTIST
JIM HAD THE REARVIEW MIRROR TILTED SO THAT he could see into the back seat, where Alice, his two-year-old daughter, appeared and disappeared and reappeared out of darkness as the...
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Never take advice.
In the spirit of NaNoWriMo, we asked our Unbridled authors: “What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever given or received?” Today’s post is from beloved author, Timothy Schaffert.
“The advice I always like to give to writers is that they should never take advice from writers. But that’s fairly bad advice, especially coming from a teacher of writing. But there’s a shred of...
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Nurse the mystery.
Today’s Unbridled answer to “What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever given or received?” is from author William J. Cobb.
When Writing Novels, Nurse The Mystery
So I’m working on a novel right now, and am struck by how logistics can influence the reading experience. In a nutshell, don’t give everything away too fast.
Avoid the word “because,” such as, “Lucinda and Scott...
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No Rules
Congratulations to everyone participating in NaNoWriMo for moving through your first full week—loud applause!
In the spirit of NaNoWriMo, we continue to share our authors’ responses to the question: “What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever given or received?”
“I spent ten years in creative writing workshops. They were some of the best, most frustrating years of my life....
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Don't think.
Unbridled’s authors continue to answer our NaNoWriMo inspired question: “What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever given or received?” Newly minted debut novelist Richard Kramer—who also happens to be the Emmy and multiple Peabody award-winning writer, director and producer of numerous TV series, including My So-called Life & Thirtysomething—shares this:
“Two pieces of...
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Be willing to risk offending your family.
In the spirit of NaNoWriMo, we asked our Unbridled authors: “What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever given or received?” We were wowed by their feedback: no-nonsense, inspirational, and always entertaining. We’ll be sharing all month long.
Long ago in a small gathering at the University of Oregon I heard Gordon Lish give two pieces of advice to writers that stuck with...
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Write immediately. . . nap often.
There’s so much writing advice floating around out there that it can all feel a bit overwhelming. I think my all-time favorite, just because it seems to me to make so much sense, is to write immediately on first waking—while you’re still in that blissfully irrational state, still with one foot in the world of your dreams. The famous example that’s always given is that of poet Donald Hall,...
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The Alchemy of Writing
In the spirit of NaNoWriMo, we asked some of our Unbridled authors: “What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever given or received?” We found their answers to be positively inspiring.
“In an essay published in Granta about the temporary loss of his eyesight, novelist Teju Cole says this: “When we write fiction, we write within what we know. But we also write in the hope that what...
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Be a stubborn writer.
In the spirit of NaNoWriMo, we asked our Unbridled authors: “What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever given or received?” We think what they had to say was positively inspiring—and we’ll be sharing their thoughts with you all month long.
Kickstands up!
“The best writing advice I ever received wasn’t really advice. Advice should be something...
October 2012
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Five Rules of Temping
Armed with a college degree from a good school in Southern California, I go—day by day—to different major corporations, time card in hand, job assignment in tote. This Renaissance woman punches a clock, earning big bucks for a temp agency and getting request upon request for Monday-morning returns. The good news is that I get to wear the same outfit over and over again.
There are rules for a...
September 2012
3 posts
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