![\"20130701_195859.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/www.dresan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/20130701_195859.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
I’m a published urban fantasy author<\/a> with two novels on the shelves, one of which, FROST MOON, won an award<\/a>. I have two more novels in the can and I’ve just finished coediting an anthology<\/a> with twenty stories based on an idea I proposed<\/a>. I’ve read extensively on writing theory and even have written a few articles on the subject<\/a>.<\/p>\n So what am I doing with a copy of WRITING FICTION FOR DUMMIES<\/a>?<\/p>\n Doing whatever I can to get better at what I do, that’s what.<\/p>\n Once a friend saw the huge stack of theory-of-fiction books in my Library<\/a>, one of which is “Novel Writing for Complete Morons” or some title a lot like that, and he remarked “wow, it’s probably been a long time since you had to look at that one.” Well, that happened to be true, but not because I read the book, then wrote some novels, and then grew beyond it.<\/p>\n The truth is, I’d already written one novel – and chunks of six or seven others – when I got “Novel Writing for Complete Morons.” Heck, I may have already written FROST MOON at that point. But I’m a book hound, and I look at everything. I came across the book, probably at a bargain bin. And I saw a chapter I can use. So I bought it.<\/p>\n I actually love reading overviews. I can dive deep into a technical book, but sometimes it’s only stepping back and summarizing the text – either by reading a summary, or writing one yourself – that enables you to hang the details upon a coherent whole. Even when the overview isn’t interesting, sometimes the book itself has details you simply can’t find elsewhere.<\/p>\n In the case of WRITING FICTION FOR DUMMIES, I saw it in a bargain bin, flipped through it – and found a section in a chapter on editing scenes, a task I’d just been struggling with on my third Dakota Frost novel, LIQUID FIRE. So I bought it, and tonight read a few chunks, some of which are good for structuring scenes, others of which were helpful in overall novel structure.<\/p>\n Some of that information is review; other parts are completely new. It doesn’t matter. It helped me move forward<\/i>.<\/p>\n Creative expression is driven by ego, but it’s stifled by snobbery. Don’t get embarrassed by what you need to do to improve. If you were trying to climb out of a pit, would you hold your hand back from a rung that was candy colored and clearly intended for children? No. As long as the rung is solid, you grab it and pull yourself up.<\/p>\n Anything else is just hurting yourself in an effort to look good.<\/p>\n -the Centaur<\/p>\n Pictured: WRITING FICTION FOR DUMMIES, atop THE POETICS OF THE MIND’S EYE<\/a> by Christopher Collins<\/a>, a study of visual imagination in literature and cognitive science. See how hard it is to be honest with yourself and do what needs doing? Here I had to bring along a technical book I’m reading and use it to prop up the For Dummies book in an absurd attempt at credentialing<\/a>.<\/p>\n No, I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen: I may have happened to have picked up THE POETICS OF THE MIND’S EYE at about the same time as WRITING FICTION FOR DUMMIES, and I may have had it in my reading pile because I was evaluating whether to recommend it to a friend who works in the field of visual imagination<\/a>, but the one has little to do with the other.<\/p>\n I, a published author, picked up WRITING FICTION FOR DUMMIES, and it had useful information for a problem I was trying to solve. Don’t be embarrassed about things like that: do whatever you have to to help yourself get better<\/b><\/i>. End of list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’m a published urban fantasy author with two novels on the shelves, one of which, FROST MOON, won an award. I have two more novels in the can and I’ve…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[197,205,1,198,202],"tags":[35,6,4,109,69,89],"class_list":["post-2385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-groups","category-uncategorized","category-urban-fantasy","category-writing","tag-book-review","tag-dakota-frost","tag-dragon-writers","tag-the-battle-for-the-mind","tag-the-musty-smell-of-books","tag-write-to-the-end","ratio-2-1","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2385"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3763,"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2385\/revisions\/3763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}