Too Many Blogs

A couple of years ago, I was blogging up a storm. And I was blogging about so many different topics that it made sense to have dedicated blogs for each one. But now, I'm so busy, and most of my writing time is spent on practice for my creative writing, that blogging has largely become an obligation that I'm avoiding. Plus there's Facebook which has become a sort of shorthand blogging for me (along with many others).

I haven't decided how best to use this space, then, if not for a blog. I foresee a redesign in the future. But at the moment, I'm so wrapped up in pre-production for my spoken word film, "December 6: Reframing School Shootings", that this space will just remain static (apart from the feeds from Limes with Orange) until the film is finished.

So if you want to know what I'm up to, check out Limes with Orange or Facebook. And maybe one of these days you'll pop back onto this site and see a whole new design.

Disclosure

This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. The purpose of this blog is simply to write about all manner of subjects related to writing, books and language that inspire, amuse, vex or interest me. For questions about this blog, please contact cara at weirdgrrl dot ca.

The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely my own. From time to time, there may be some posts on this blog for which I receive a small amount of compensation. These posts may not always be identified as such, but they are always about products or websites that I support and they absolutely reflect my honest opinions. The only thing that will ever be influenced by any compensation received is the topics I choose to write about. My words and opinions are my own and not for sale.

Too.Many.Words.

Words, words, words
I'm so sick of words...

I've realized that when your day job is editing other people's writing and your off hours are spent writing a feature-length screenplay, creating several niche blogs that require regular posting might not have been the smartest idea I ever had.

Which is why this poor little blog has been so sorely neglected, right down to its coding. But I promise that I will eventually fix the code, add a search box and try to post weekly. It's just going to take a little longer and be a bit more challenging to keep up with than I initially thought. So bear with me...

Harlem Writer

I'm always on the lookout for interesting blogs about writing or language or literature. The Harlem Writer is such a blog that recently came to my attention. The author is the founder, moderator and a participant of the Morningside Writers Group in Manhattan, a very interesting looking writers group that makes me wish I lived in New York City. (Mind you, a lot of things make me wish I lived in NYC!)

But back to the blog. It's a combination of posts about writing, writing events and writing groups mixed in with personal musings written in a literary way and a way-too-funny Family Guy clip. If you haven't checked it out yet, I recommend taking a peek.

Writing Dialogue

First of all, I promise that once Script Frenzy is over I'll talk about more styles of writing than just screenplays, but in the meantime...

I was just reading an article over at Script Frenzy entitled: 5 Tips for Dialogue That Make Strong Men Weep (I'll admit that it wasn't just the topic that made me click on the link, the title was a big draw). It's not so much that there's anything NEW in the article, but it's well written and I liked the author's approach. And I find the thing with books and articles about writing (like so many other crafts), many authors write the same basic content... but it's HOW they write it that determines whether it will work for you or not. And this article worked for me. Hopefully, it will work for you, too.

The author of the article also has an interesting blog called everything comes together at 2 a.m. about scratch fiction and photographs. What is scratch fiction, you might ask. Well, this author defines it as short fiction written for the internet. I just wish he listed categories because, as gorgeous as his photos are, I'm really just there for the articles and the scratch fiction.

Writing for TV

I've made a number of posts related to screenwriting, since that's my main focus at the moment. But I thought I would take an opportunity to branch out a bit here and talk about writing for television... a very different animal.

Two of my favourite TV shows of all time are "Buffy" and the new "Battlestar Galactica." One writer that has worked on both shows is Jane Espenson. And she has a blog. And she dispenses writing advice on her blog: Jane in Progress.

Her advice is doled out in bite size tidbits which are easily digestible. It's not like reading some great big tome with chapters of advice. This is where you go to unblock that pesky writer's block or jump start yourself out of that rut. (Plus you can find out what she had for lunch. )

It's fun and informative. And even though she's a TV writer, her advice often applies to writing in general. What more could you ask for?

P.S. Anyone know if Aaron Sorkin has a blog? Because that's another TV writer that I'd love to get tips from.

Speaking of Book Reviews

I wanted to mention this book review site that I've recently been enjoying. It's called The Symposium. The reviewer, Joana, definitely has a penchant for Horror, SciFi and Fantasy (which I love) but she does reviews of books outside of those genres, as well. Her reviews are thorough and intelligent without giving away too much -- not an easy task when reviewing fiction -- so you definitely won't be disappointed. And don't forget to check out her Recommended Reading List while you're there!