On what felt like the first and long-awaited spring day of the year, I think about how the things we do in this season could also be applied to fiction that’s been in hibernation for any period of time.
(And if anyone dares to make a comment about how writing a blog post about something instead of actually doing it is the ultimate procrastination, I will sic Tark and Mara on you.)
Yesterday was Saint Patrick’s Day. He might be one of the better known saints, but there’s a patron saint of everything, if only you wish to look. Unfortunately for writers, I did look, and the patron saint of writing is complete crap. So I’ve written a manifesto for a new one.
By this time we know why we should never live with one of the great fictional stereotypes: it’ll never end well. But publishing is changing, and the genre mash-up has already gained some ground. So what happens when genres collide? What would happen if a hard-nosed Cop from a Crime Novel shared a house with a hapless Chick-Lit Heroine?
It snowed a lot in Ireland this week, and nobody could talk about anything else. It’s very difficult to argue about snow, and a major weather event tends to bring people together. Thankfully, though, there’s always somebody online having a book-related brawl, just in case we’re ever in danger of getting too complacent about humanity.
Tara Sparling writes 