Author Archives: Theodora Goss

A Murder Mystery

We were talking about deliberate practice, and it seemed to me that deliberate practice, for a writer, would involve more than working on sentence or scene structure, for example. It would involve practicing to be creative. So I was thinking … Continue reading

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The Literary Vocation

As I’ve probably mentioned, I’m reading Mario Vargas Llosa’s Letters to a Young Novelist. As I read it, I’ll excerpt passages that I think are important and comment on them. Yesterday I mentioned how helpful I think it is to … Continue reading

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What Vonnegut Said

I’ve been thinking about the idea of deliberate practice, and it seems to me that while the idea is certainly a good one, the way it’s described in Geoff Colvin’s Talent is Overrated doesn’t really help writers. Colvin describes deliberate … Continue reading

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Signs of Spring

I still have a significant amount of work to do this month, but I find myself restless in the way I always do when spring comes and the school year ends. It’s time to clean things up, start things anew. … Continue reading

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Sigh No More

I found the strangest thing. I had just deleted the comments that WordPress had identified as spam and was glancing through a list of my blog posts for the last few weeks when I realized there was one I had … Continue reading

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Writing News

Two very nice things happened today. The first was that I received my copy of Asimov’s Science Fiction with my story “Pug” in it. Here’s what it looks like: My name is on the cover! Did you notice? (I think … Continue reading

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On Being Impatient

Yesterday afternoon, I suddenly started to get sick. Aching throat, runny nose, that sort of thing. Just a standard virus, but I was supposed to turn in a revised manuscript that day, and suddenly I couldn’t think straight. I had … Continue reading

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