Big Cat, Little Cat: Artistic Integrity What is Artistic Integrity and How Much does it Cost? What happens to an artist who is commercially successful? Or a politician for that matter? People talk about how “so-and-so went to Washington and forgot who voted them in.” Or “So and so got big and now just makes…
Tag: books
NaNoWriMo: Conflict (Caturday)
Big Cat, Little Cat Feeling Conflicted about Conflict I find that establishing and escalating conflict is the hardest thing to do for a new writer. Picture it: you’ve got your setting and it’s a good’n. It’s somewhere familiar to you, either based on the place where you grew up or on somewhere you’ve been that…
NaNoWriMo Tips: Overcoming Obstacles.
My credential for writing this is that I have written the manuscript for one novel and it has not been published. You don’t necessarily want to hear from someone who has written (and published) half a dozen or more books and is now summarizing their craft. Leastwise I don’t. When famous authors say some version…
Conflict (Caturday Questions)
Big Cat, Little Cat (Adam has left posting this week’s Big Cat Little, Little Cat up to me. I hope I’ve done as good a job as he does.) Can’t We All Just Get Along? Most of us who love to read have a favorite genre. A kind of book we reach for before anything…
What Do you Know from Funny?
The world’s great philosophers don’t fully understand funny. I discovered this in my second year of grad school. I was taking a class on the Canterbury Tales. As the semester wore on, I was more and more fascinated by Chaucer’s humor. Stop and think for the moment. If you name the top ten most influential…
Going for a Walk (Caturday Questions)
Big Cat, Little Cat: Going for a Walk Anthropomorphic Characters I’m more of a dog-person than a cat-person. But the idea of being a dog-person or a cat-person involves projecting personalities onto animals that… probably wouldn’t hold up to scrutiny. We’ve all seen a cat going for a walk, or sitting on a cushion, or…
Writing about Writer’s Block
There are times when I don’t feel like writing a weekly column. This is one of those times. So let’s talk about that. I’ve had a bunch of writing students over the years, and I’ve found that teaching writing makes me a better writer. For one thing, when you’re helping people out of their writer’s…
Books that Matter (Caturday Questions)
Big Cat, Little Cat Reader Responses and Books that Matter What’s an example of a book that hollowed you out? You got to the good part and you just… couldn’t put it down, but you could barely bring yourself to keep reading. Maybe the emotions were too painful, too close to home. Do you seek…
Not Just a Phase?
I’ve written about the first time I kissed a girl. I’ve written about how much it would have meant to me to have queer role models. And I’ve written about why it was really important for me to have access to queer books as a teenager. I’ve never really talked about the “not just a…
Lazy Weekend (Caturday Questions)
Normally, I Tie the Comic to an Essay on a Literary Theme. For Example, I Could Tie this to Character Motivation or the Untapped Potential of the Lazy Weekend in Most Works of Literature Not this time. Have a good lazy weekend, everyone. Unless you work in food or retail in which case I just…