Writer Unboxed

Surfing the best of the writers blogs so you don’t have to.
Wow, what a week. Our Erin Hunter interview is bringing us massive traffic. Part Two of this interview goes live tomorrow. If you write children’s or YA literature, you won’t want to miss it.
The other thing that blew my mind was Tor editor Anna […]

It’s raining cats and dogs (well, okay, and hobbits) here this week at Writer Unboxed, so I thought I’d continue that trend today.
It may have been a coincidence that I finished reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and almost immediately went out and bought myself a puppy - or maybe it […]

Yesterday we posted Part Three of our article (co-written with author Elena Greene) on lessons writers could draw from Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies. I’m too lazy to link the trackbacks, but a simple scroll will get you to Parts One, Two, and Three.
Sigh. As I revisit the lessons, I grow nostalgic for […]

Therese, Kathleen and their writer buddy Elena Greene had their article, Lessons from The Lord of the Rings published last November, and now they’re freeing it to share with the world (in part because Writer’s Digest doesn’t take reprints - bah).
But don’t start reading the article in the middle, my preciousesss, because we’re already up […]

Watch out, Harry Potter! The hottest fantasy series for school-age children features not the young wizard with a scar, but a pack of feral cats struggling to survive in the wild.
Note: STARLIGHT, the New Prophecy, is #2 on the New York Time’s children’s bestseller list as of 4/13/06.
The series, WARRIORS, is the work of author […]

Surfing the best of the writers’ blogs so you don’t have to, while coming off the choco-bunny buzz.
The hilarious rambles of SFF author Hal Duncan currently has us rolling. We’re going to interview Hal soon about his new release VELLUM, which is garnering great reviews. In the meantime, check out his latest.
Victoria gives us another […]

A few decades back, I posted on ways a face can express the emotions sadness and agony, suggesting there’s a great wide world for the writer beyond descriptions of crooked eyebrows. Paul Ekman, in his book Emotions Revealed, gives us a lot of think about when considering yet another powerful mood, anger.
Before I get to […]

Yesterday we posted Part One of our published article LESSONS FROM LORD OF THE RINGS (co-written with author Elena Greene). Today we post the second part of our article. Warning: though hard-cord nerdiness is helpful when reading the following, it is not essential. Good writing transcendes the genres.
3. Tap into sources of inner conflict to […]

Therese and Kathleen readily embrace their “inner nerd” when it comes to The Lord of the Rings. They, along with fellow nerd and writer buddy Elena Greene, even wrote an article about Peter Jackson’s movie version of the story, focusing on choices he made that all writers can learn from. The following is the first […]

Surfing the best of the writers’ blogs so you don’t have to, holiday edition.
It’s been a fairly slow week heading into the holiday, but the big news is that Dan Brown prevailed in his plagiarism lawsuit. Henry Baignent and Richard Leigh, authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail, will have to use their royalty money to […]

Yesterday, Kathleen and Therese dished–and disagreed–about the effectiveness of Peter Jackson’s remade classic, King Kong. Here’s part two of their roaring debate.
Therese: What did you think about the authenticity aspect of the film?
Kathleen: One thing PJ and co. do really well is set a mood. The music, the Depression-era culture, the rust-bucket boat…it was spot […]

Therese and Kathleen are both nerds extraordinaire when it comes to Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings. In fact, they crafted an article (along with co-nerd, Elena Greene) about writerly lessons that can be derived from the film, and the article was published last November in the romance association’s craft magazine, the RWR. So when […]