Welcome, Brave Writers.
O Writers! Do you Suffer from Writer's-Block? The Fiction-Writing Directorate can Help!
Our Exhortations will Inspire you; our Exercises will Strengthen you; and the Ancient Art of Shiva Nata will Enlighten you.
Read! Write! Flourish!
Or Else.
Subsiste statim sermonem et scribe.
|
By Lida, on January 14th, 2011
Lida
Darlings! Last week’s Clearing of the Decks was so deliciously invigorating that I volunteered to lead this week’s. I’m thrilled!
I have a huge mountain of work that I’ve been avoiding recently. It began as the kind of perfectly ordinary avoidance where I didn’t even remember the job until it was far too late in the evening and I was already ensconced in my cozy zeppelin with a burly admirer (or two) and a bottle (or two) of champagne, conditions under which performing my Directorate duties would clearly be implausible, if not impossible.
The Cycle of Shame
Then I remembered the work, and . . . → Read More: Clear The Decks Friday: One Tiny Step
By Lida, on January 13th, 2011
Beth
Last week, I introduced you to Shiva Nata. Now it’s time to tell you the most important part: it’s all about doing it wrong.
It’s not just ok to make mistakes when doing Shiva Nata. It’s required.
What?
It’s a strange concept; generally, we’re taught to do well and to succeed. When failure is acceptable at all – and so often it is not – it’s only in the service of learning to do better. “Babies fall down all the time while they’re learning to walk,” we’re told, “so it’s ok if you screw up a lot while you’re learning a new skill. . . . → Read More: Shiva Nata: To Failure and Beyond
By Ethelie, on January 11th, 2011
Some days, it seems the Halls of the Directorate are filled with Agents bemoaning their Lack of Inspiration.
Pah! What a feeble Excuse! Henceforth, any Agent who dares Proffer it will be Imprisoned in a dark Closet with the Plot Spider and her little Spiderlings. Perhaps the sensation of Thousands of tiny Feet clambering over your Helpless Body will prove sufficient Inspiration.
However, I fear that Agents who are not in the Environs of the Directorate may not Benefit from such gentle Inspiration. Hence, I offer alternate Sources. I encourage you to Peruse these Offerings. What exquisite Tales hide in each, waiting only . . . → Read More: An Exhortation: Concerning Inspiration
By Ethelie, on January 7th, 2011
Ethelie
O my little Galapagos Tortoises! Welcome to the first Clear the Decks Friday. After experiencing the Salubrious Benefits of Clearing our Decks in December, we wanted to Ensure that our Decks remained Clear, and encourage you to do Likewise. Therefore, each Friday, we will Gather together to work on our unseemly Tasks, and benefit both from Companionship and the delights of Completion. Let us work on the Tasks which we have Avoided.
As I consider my Lingering Tasks for the week, I am appalled at how Quickly they accumulate. Why, our Decks were clear less than a Fortnight ago; yet already . . . → Read More: Clear the Decks Friday: Eliminate the Nebulous
By Ethelie, on January 6th, 2011
The Fiction-Writing Directorate is Delighted to announce that Ms. Beth Wodzinski, renowned Shiva Nata instructor, is joining the Staff of the Directorate. She will instruct Agents in the ancient Dance of Shiva. — Ethelie.
Hi, I’m Beth. I am both surprised and pleased to find myself employed by the Fiction-Writing Directorate.
Beth
I’m a certified Dance of Shiva instructor, and am really looking forward to bringing this practice to the recalcitrant writers of the Directorate. I bet the Dance of Shiva can help you keep your limbs from being devoured by the Hounds: it can help dissolve blocks, give you energy, and help . . . → Read More: Introducing the Art of Shiva Nata
By Ethelie, on January 3rd, 2011
Ethelie
O my little Cuttlefish!
This December past, the staff of the Fiction-Writing Directorate undertook a marvelous Experiment: Clear the Decks December. The results were so Salubrious, we knew we must Share them with you. We encourage you to undertake a similar Experiment of your own, that you may also Benefit.
Our Unspeakable Problem
Our list of Terribly Important Tasks was unending. Tasks, like Biscuit-Crumbs, have a devious Manner about them, and accumulate rapidly despite one’s best Efforts to brush them off one’s Bosom; and before long, one finds oneself veritably Buried. Attend to this Message, burn that Message . . . → Read More: On the Merits of Clearing the Decks
By Ethelie, on December 28th, 2010
O my little Holly-Berries!
I write today’s Post, the Last of the Year, aquiver with Excitement.
Our Year in Review
O my little Mistletoe! What an Extraordinary year for the Fiction-Writing Directorate. In February we broke Centuries of staid Silence and stepped out into the InterWebs so that we might further Pursue our Mission. Since then, we Released our Manifesto, created our first Course and befriended the Giant Squid. To our Despair, and the Beastmaster’s Delight, no less than Thirteen unfortunate Writers were Devoured entire by the Hounds, and Dozens more now sport finely crafted Prosthetic Limbs to replace the ones upon which the . . . → Read More: The Year in Review
By Boggins, on December 14th, 2010
Before Miss Ethelie left on her yearly Ice Hotel vacation, she put me in charge of cleaning up the Directorate webspace. This site you’re readin’ right now as you gnaw on your biscuits.
I said “Woman, I don’t know the first thing about fixin webspaces,” but she just ta-ta’d me and had one of her pet sherpas carry her bags to the zeppelin and left.
I sat in front before one of Gustav’s sinful computer boxes and contemplated the webspace. It looked worse than the crawlspace underneath Mama’s porch with the pile of dead rats and Mittens the cat’s outdoor litter box.
“Well, . . . → Read More: I Shined Up the Ol’ Directorate
By Ethelie, on November 22nd, 2010
The Directorate is filled with the Wails of Agents who struggle with their NaNoWriMo Novels. Oh, to be sure, many Agents have flourished this Month, typing Hundreds of Thousands of exquisite words. We applaud them!
But others, despite the Directorate’s best Efforts, languish. It is almost as if the Ungrateful Wretches do this out of Spite.
An Example of a Struggling Writer
Let me Present to you the example of Agent Sweetman-Gross. This Unfortunately Hyphenated agent came to me Yesterday, weeping. She was nearly twenty-thousand words Behind, and doubted she would ever Succeed. Indeed, I shared her Doubts. She was a Terrible sight to . . . → Read More: On the Merits of Giving Up
By Gustav, on November 5th, 2010
Concerning the Evils of NaPhreAppMo
Gustav
November, not April, is the cruelest month, for it brings the horror that is NaPhreAppMo: National Phrenologist Apprenticeship Month, in which hundreds of thousands of would-be phrenologists declare themselves “apprentices” and go out into the world, shaving the heads of strangers and creating bad drawings of the features of their skulls.
If these erstwhile phrenologists cannot find willing volunteers, they either chloroform the unwary, or simply invent drawings of imaginary people and unicorns. I myself do not leave Directorate headquarters during the entire month of November, lest I be accosted by an earnest young protophrenologist.
They then believe . . . → Read More: On the Horrors of People Liking Things I Do Not
|
Sign Up
My little Manatees! If you Dare, sign up to become an Agent of the Fiction-Writing Directorate.
Take our free course: Writing Whilst Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse: Nine Essential Teachings.
Updates by Email
Simply enter your Address below to receive Posts by Electronic Mail.
|
