Why is freelancing like prison? Jeff VanderMeer has the answer.
VanderMeer was one of our first Five Easy Questions guests, and his freelancing advice still stands the test of time--get plenty of exercise to cope with the stress and isolation of the writing life.
The Work-in-progress blog of novelist Leslie Pietrzyk offers some tough-love advice for writers. How To Tell When To Stop Writing Your Novel. Just listen to this: "Many years after getting my MFA, I returned to my alma mater as a returning 'visiting writer,' and I shocked a huge room of MFA students (and some profs) by announcing that my thesis was crap and that I was happy now it hadn’t been published." (Thanks, Maud Newton)
Steve Bryant riffs off the Sopranos finale, exploring how television has changed the way we remember stories: "In dramatically cutting the action mid-scene, David Chase created modern television's first un-Tivo-able moment. There is nothing -- literally nothing -- to see." When you finish reading his essay, go dig on the Top Five Pulp Fiction Endings to remember how people told stories before Tivo...
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