tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22423967751056031432012-01-05T09:11:38.807-08:00Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.comBlogger431100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-1093248633681520832012-01-05T08:24:00.000-08:002012-01-05T09:11:38.819-08:00

So I completed my first short story of the year. Hooray! I am currently typing it up -- being a hand-written kind of guy -- and it's breaking 2000 words right now with plenty to go and plenty of room for expansion.  It's tentatively titled, "The Temple of Guayna Tuampa" and takes place in the same world as my "Empress of the Danforthe" stories. It was a challenge on one of the websites I

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-3951820556911510882012-01-01T19:23:00.000-08:002012-01-05T09:11:08.088-08:00

It's a new year, and it's going to be a big one.  The Milwaukee Writers Workshop will soon (i.e. this week) be a full-on business with dues and a budget. Oh man! It's going to be hectic and wonderful all at the same time. It's also going to allow us to do a lot more, provide a lot more, and expand in the future.  In writing news, I've been working on a NaNo-driven rewrite of my infamous "

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-44604681481962046762011-10-11T20:02:00.000-07:002011-10-11T20:04:33.105-07:00

I recently encountered a writer -- and I'm a little loathe to use that word, writer -- who said to me that he refused to do rewrites because he felt that a piece ought to be perfect the first time it's written. My first thought was, "Someone has been reading too many parables about Faulkner." My immediate second thought was, "I have no rebuttal." I am going out on a limb here to say that this

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-45421064029964807312011-09-15T09:03:00.001-07:002011-10-10T06:36:38.657-07:00

Projects have been coming in copious amounts lately. It's been a busy summer for my writing, and I'm happy about that. After CONVergence I felt like I'd made a discovery, or perhaps I simply allowed myself the pleasure of admitting something: I write steampunk. I'm good at it. I like it. I'm ok with that. I've always had an inordinate love for Victorian literature (Dickens is my man), and I love

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-16228919462449268292011-07-05T19:17:00.000-07:002011-07-05T19:31:23.343-07:00

So much going on. Many updates.WriteCamp 3 was good. We had about 90 people and some really good sessions. I also think that we did a good job of really pushing the envelope as far as garnering sponsors and repeat visitors. So who knows what next year will bring. Overall I was pleased.I am still working (though not as strongly) on my post-apocalyptic, Second Coming story. I'm roughly 40,000 words

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-33361531390380494112011-04-11T16:53:00.000-07:002011-04-11T17:09:45.215-07:00

I talk so often about writing, and improving writing, and motivating one's self to write, and blah blah blah, that I forget to take a minute to really reconnect with why I write. Why it's important to me to write.Lately, for some unknown reason -- and one that I am not about to question -- I have been writing consistently, constantly, and (quite honestly) pretty damn well. Since February, I have

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-61025729000681368822011-02-24T14:50:00.000-08:002011-02-24T14:59:34.241-08:00

In a moment of brilliance -- or perhaps just idiot savant-ness -- I figured out the integral flaw in my very first attempt at a novel. It's a project I've long thought was worthy of having been written but more than once person has pointed out error after error. It was never that I didn't think that the errors were un-fixable; I just didn't know how to do it.At work last week, however, it dawned

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-43792355675116533472011-02-18T09:58:00.000-08:002011-02-18T10:02:11.446-08:00

Three years ago, when the Milwaukee Writers Workshop still had all of its groups on one day, I braved the novel critique with a project that was nearly seven years old (at least) and in its fourth or fifth iteration. It was a novel that was (perhaps still is) my former* wife's favorite piece. A colleague in the group, who I thoroughly respect for his critique and his writing skill, offered up the

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-52492849031759943172011-02-09T19:32:00.000-08:002011-02-09T19:44:29.696-08:00

So here's the scoop. Since the beginning of the year, I have the following new pieces written:"The Pariah of Langeford" -- 1100 words; pseudo fantasy"Electric Golems" -- 4700 words; steampunk"The Pageant Fire" -- 1700 words; contemporary"The Horticenter" -- 900 words; futurist science fiction"Annalisa (WT)" -- 3400 words; steampunk"Thomas, Boy Wonder" -- unfinished steampunkI have also been

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-83876849369802650572010-10-07T10:05:00.000-07:002010-10-07T10:18:59.606-07:00

Right now, somewhere in the world, my story "Westward Expansion" sits being considered for what will be my biggest publication to date (should it get accepted). It's been out for 98 days now and the editors have gone through two rounds of sending out rejections. As the old saying goes, "No news is good news." I'm excited, nervous, anxious, and scared as hell, because it will be a great step

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-67743569977898419482010-09-19T17:19:00.000-07:002010-09-19T17:28:05.518-07:00

Lately I've been trying to inspire myself through music, and it's worked, though not in the most uplifting of ways. I tend to write relatively somber pieces (which most know if they've ever read my work), but I seem to be listening to a lot of very quiet, brooding, mood-dampening music. It's worked to produce some good work, though -- at least in my opinion.I did recently finish a short story of

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-61079278871083333872010-08-05T08:59:00.001-07:002010-08-05T08:59:59.179-07:00

It's always surprising -- though not shocking -- how things come in droves when they do come, whether good or bad. So here are some updates -- both the good and the bad -- and don't worry, there's some writing-related bits at the end.1. After a very long and packed Spring planning for WriteCamp, we were rewarded with a great turn-out for the event and an even better response to it this year than

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-2143156185184000822010-05-05T19:19:00.000-07:002010-05-05T19:33:49.359-07:00

Hello everyone. So it's update time.First, there's WriteCamp Milwaukee 2. The event of the season is closing in fast, and we're all very excited. We're getting retweeted and forwarded and mentioned all over the place, and we're hoping that means an even better turn-out than last year -- which was, to our surprise, amazing. If you're in Milwaukee on June 5 of this year, please visit us. Here is

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-13543998328312831522010-02-20T12:48:00.000-08:002010-02-20T13:01:11.340-08:00

January was a bad first month for 2010 -- at least emotionally. Without getting too sappy and divulging too much, I had a relative pass away and my dad went into the hospital. I don't deal well with tragedy sometimes, and this time was worse than usual. However, I feel like I've come back with a vengeanace, and I'm working hard to get back into the swing of things with my writing, which

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-1869400182651597402010-01-13T12:14:00.001-08:002010-01-13T12:22:23.967-08:00

I am always moved to write when someone I know dies. I feel like it's the best way for me to cope: to put my emotions onto the page and hope that in the process I work through my pain is the goal. It helps, though. A friend of mine -- a therapist and a good one at that -- once talked to me about coaching people suffering from depression and other things to use art as their outlet for their

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-83531990542394126562009-12-17T10:05:00.001-08:002009-12-17T10:13:31.122-08:00

So it's nearly Christmas, and I'm in full swing on the editing process of the novel. It's going well (or at least I feel it is), and I'm working on adding in some material that I passed over during the initial writing of the piece. I've also had a big breakthrough in how the magic works in my world, which has become a much more important aspect of the story than I'd originally thought. So I'm

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-41568013947268444642009-11-28T15:07:00.000-08:002009-11-28T15:24:19.546-08:00

November has been a busy month with NaNoWriMo and with just three days left until the end of the month (a little less given the time of day on Saturday that I'm writing this) it's gone very well. I've neglected a few things -- like blogs, Facebook updates, Tweets, etc. -- in favor of getting my word count, and I'm proud of the progress that I've made. Come December I will be reviewing my work

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-24081161336086123002009-11-06T09:54:00.000-08:002009-11-06T10:01:59.547-08:00

I've been running a writers workshop in a town north of where I live. Last night was the third meeting, and it went well -- as have all the others. We are working on characters and character development, because the majority of the writers there are new to the craft and have a lot to learn. I think creating believable characters are always a great place to start to write memorable stories.As a

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-43142860390131493592009-10-21T09:26:00.001-07:002009-10-21T09:31:31.909-07:00

So NaNoWriMo is coming up quick, and I'm much better prepared this year than I was the last two - and especially last year. I've settled on the Steampunk genre, and I've got a fairly good plot outline. The YA aspect is a bit sketchy, but that's because I'm very new to the arena, and some of it is self-doubt. I'm sure I'll get over that.One of the threads on the NaNo forum asks for a 20-word

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-1039868999860333002009-10-13T18:52:00.000-07:002009-10-13T19:01:13.905-07:00

Someone recently asked me whether I thought "The Muse" was fact or fiction. Being a writer, other writers consistently ask what my muse is, where it comes from, how I react to it; at the same time, non-writers ask me what I think it is. Quite plainly - after years of frustration, story after story written, and time spent supporting other writers - I think The Muse is an excuse. What are you

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-31988821177159060682009-10-12T11:12:00.001-07:002009-10-12T11:20:41.470-07:00

I've been discussing the nature of ideology and steampunk a lot over on the Brass Goggles forums lately. Even after a few posts, it has become very clear to me that my vision of the genre is completely different from most of those who frequent the forums. I have always been one to take a serious approach to literature. As I've mentioned before, I feel like fiction ought to have a purpose:

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-48122070929441082792009-08-23T11:27:00.001-07:002009-08-23T11:49:50.626-07:00

Literary movements typically happen without an express intent to do so. Writers working under similar perceptions of the nature of language, writing, politics, society, or whatever else drives a writer to write, tend to create movements inadvertently by writing in similar fashion. Modernism was a response to the Romantic idealism of the 19th Century. Post-Modernism was a response to the

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-83841447277656206092009-08-05T16:20:00.000-07:002009-08-05T16:34:07.987-07:00

The Editor-at-Large of Every Day Fiction just got back from Clarion West this past weekend, and I caught up on his blog (after a brief discussion about a rejection I received from EDF - only my second). It got me thinking about the amount of writing I actually produce in a given time.When I started writing consistently, I was in my sophomore year of college - yes, I said college. I had written

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-494665276759044842009-07-23T20:32:00.000-07:002009-07-27T11:51:37.345-07:00

Why do you write? What drives you to put words to paper or screen? I write because I have something to say, and I want to world to learn about my vision of the world. There is much to make commentary on in society and the world at large, and I use my writing to do just that. I have a purpose in writing. I believe that that is the difference between "literary" fiction and non-. Too many

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-56724834752784227692009-06-29T12:24:00.000-07:002009-07-23T20:34:59.471-07:00

The last month has been dedicated, very heavily, to the polishing of a novella that I've had completed for nearly three years (perhaps four, though my memory eludes me). I've had it critiqued, rewritten it, critiqued again, and sat on a shelf for six months. What I've found through the process of this polish is that time in stories is a uniquely difficult thing to master. So here are some of

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-9841082130893856862009-06-16T07:46:00.000-07:002009-06-16T07:56:12.756-07:00

For a long time, I've been working on notes and details and maps (nearly everything but writing) in my world of Dalurin. It's an expansive world, and I have a lot of faith in it - and not just because I'm the one creating it. I've written two legends of some length that are based in the world, and those are good material for future writing, but they're not really the kind of thing to try and

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-73424301433683032742009-06-08T11:32:00.000-07:002009-06-08T11:50:50.705-07:00

WriteCamp was here in Milwaukee this past Saturday, June 6th - for those of you who haven't heard me gabbing about it for the last two months. I believe that it was a huge success, and I am eager for the next iteration of it.Over the course of the day, I learned a few things:1. Writers are not nearly as isolated and introverted as people think. Not only did we have nearly 80 people, but all of

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-89953238988171217172009-05-25T20:14:00.001-07:002009-05-26T19:51:56.866-07:00

With WriteCamp coming up in two weeks, things have been a bit hectic. However, I managed to polish off an old short story, titled "Terminal." I think that it's a bit stronger now, and I will begin to do my bit of research to figure out where would be best to send it.My next goal will be to finish off a story that I started at an MWW workshop about a month ago. I've been listening to a lot of

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-52935760928382374462009-05-20T20:45:00.000-07:002009-05-20T20:52:21.128-07:00

I've been very pleased lately with my writing.  Or, rather, the fact that I've been writing.  I polished a story I had not even looked at in quite some time and began a new story that I'd had in my head for a while.  I suppose distractions were my biggest reason for not writing but more importantly I think it was a mental block.I get that way sometimes - as I'm sure plenty of other folks do, too.

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-17098947798708852182009-05-18T19:08:00.000-07:002009-05-18T19:22:39.242-07:00

I was speaking with one of my students the other day, and she asked, "What is it about short stories that make them stand out?" I asked her if she meant stand out from other stories or stand out as a medium for fiction. She wanted both answers.So . . . what makes certain short stories stand out from other short stories?For me, it's stories that mean something. Not in the truly metaphorical way

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-48569895159794438192009-05-12T20:28:00.000-07:002009-05-12T20:42:12.787-07:00

It's a quiet night in Milwaukee, and I'm up later than I ought to be after a long day and very little sleep last night. I'm listening to the new Better Than Ezra album and feeling hopeful. WriteCamp is coming up in little less than a month, and I'm very excited about it.I wrote a steampunk flash fiction piece the other day that I'm fairly happy with. I had my wife read over it, and she said

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-47671953177782311092009-05-04T09:25:00.000-07:002009-05-04T09:32:54.283-07:00

I'm sitting in the library of the local university, and I'm listening to sad music. Why? It just strikes me sometimes that I need to listen to other peoples' sad stories; it helps me recognize the pain in the world and put it into my own writing. Some songs are so brilliantly written and poignant that they make me truly sad inside. It is my sincere hope that my own fiction will one day elicit

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-77940775555930431082009-05-01T16:39:00.000-07:002009-05-01T16:55:21.523-07:00

June 6th seemed so far away not too long ago. Now, here it is only a month away. The inaugural WriteCamp here in Milwaukee is about to be unleashed upon the world. I'm very excited about the progress the planning board has made over the course of the last three months. As it stands now, we have about 40-50 people signed up officially, at least a dozen or so more than that unofficially, and we

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-47994554467154209662008-12-09T16:47:00.000-08:002009-05-01T16:31:41.252-07:00

Since I began the Milwaukee Writers' Workshop in 2006, there have been four major groups in the city for writers. One is a group that has dues; one is a non-profit that charges for its classes. The other two were the Milwaukee Writers Group & MWW. Now there will only be three. Since Trevor and I first talked about combining our efforts and making the two groups one, one question has

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-37234235887919762902008-12-05T09:13:00.000-08:002009-05-01T16:31:41.252-07:00

It's December 5th. Five days ago I failed to complete NaNo. I'm not terribly disappointed, but I had hoped to fare better this year than I did last, and I only did by a little bit. I did, however, succeed in producing two new short stories, which I didn't even manage to do last year. So there's some good to come of it.I've been talking a lot lately with various colleagues about "community".

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-33476649035293187092008-12-01T06:08:00.000-08:002009-05-01T16:31:41.253-07:00

So I've been toying with the idea of an episodic blog. There are a number of blogs out there that are written in character by some creation of the author. I'm looking to do something entirely different (and it's been done to some degree before - at least as far as I'm aware, though I can't seem to find any examples). I have the notion to write a story in episodes and post it on a blog: easy

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-20658821091553161092008-11-29T17:23:00.000-08:002009-05-01T16:31:41.253-07:00

I'm sitting in Chicago with my wife's family. It's cold out. Winter always reminds me of being unproductive - hunkered down in your house, wishing the cold away, and keeping yourself occupied until spring. The food is good: Ashley's grandmother is a great cook.I'm not writing, though. I haven't in a few days honestly. It's disappointing, but I had a productive day the other day going through

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-29370794845495541482008-11-24T07:31:00.000-08:002009-05-01T16:31:41.253-07:00

The Milwaukee Writers Workshop met this past Sunday. As is typical, I got into a discussion with one of the members about something writing-related. That day's topic: the literary elite. Oh boy do I love this conversation - and my opinion on the subject has changed since the years when I was in college.My basic thoughts:Yes, there is a literary elite.No, they don't sit around discussing how

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-8249748683066497862008-11-21T19:07:00.000-08:002009-05-01T16:31:41.253-07:00

I'm sitting at Bucketworks in Milwaukee tonight with a bunch of web geeks, and it's amazing that ever person here has two things: a computer (some of them more than one) and no problem at all sitting next to someone and not talking to them. As a writer, I've never been afraid that moment when I have to sequester myself in a room and block out all the distractions to just sit and write. That

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-27060911250185855392008-11-16T16:36:00.000-08:002009-05-01T16:31:41.254-07:00

I'm lost. I have four different projects, all of them with very different themes and plots arcs and even genres, and still I'm lost. Granted, in just over two weeks I've churned out nearly 23-thousand words. I'm pleased at the word count. It's good that I've been able to sit and concentrate on getting some words out, but I'm not at all satisfied, for a number of reasons:1) The writing - as is

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-4859191266732139502008-11-14T11:50:00.000-08:002009-05-01T16:31:41.254-07:00

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.As a writer, it's in my best interest to be in agreement with the above quoted text. The First Amendment to the Constitution

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-22847752130407043432008-11-12T08:02:00.000-08:002009-05-01T16:31:41.254-07:00

So it's 10:00 AM on day 12 of NaNo. I'm nearly 800 words ahead of where I needed to be yesterday, which means my job will be easier today. However, as I write this story, I'm realizing something very dramatic: there's very little plot. It's disappointing, really; throughout the story I have a pretty distinct theme, and there's certainly setting, but there's not much of a plot. Chris Baty -

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242396775105603143.post-2667877951378259242008-11-11T09:56:00.000-08:002009-05-01T16:31:41.254-07:00

It's November 11th, 2008. I've been working on NaNoWriMo for eleven days, and I'm behind. When my mind wanders, I distract myself. So, instead of distracting myself with online games or checking my email incessantly, I decided to distract myself with writing: or at least, purging my mind of the random thoughts that are clogging it and making me unable to get out a clear idea of a story. So

Boone Drydenhttps://profiles.google.com/105004610508300210867noreply@blogger.com0