Benjamin Roesch

Tag: Writing Advice

  • Post #95: Well, no Shit

    This report brought to you from our correspondents in The Land Where Things Are Fairly Obvious. Last week I got to play writer in my life as a teacher, which is rare and to be treasured. One of my colleagues in the high school English department where I teach invited…

  • Post #66: Speaking Truth to Tired

    Though I’m a writer in my heart, and supporting myself through my craft (whatever that looks like) is my ultimate goal, I’m a high school English teacher by day and have been for seven years.  I love my work.  I do.  But as I sit here on an average Tuesday…

  • Post #54: The Path to Publication, Part 2

    THE GREAT FREELANCE EDITOR ROUND-UP (guest post by author Ron Dionne) So I had accepted the offer from Delabarre Publishing to publish my novel SAD JINGO as an ebook, and had withdrawn it from consideration at Akashic Books. I had chosen the Wild West that book publishing had suddenly become,…

  • Post #36: Bausch(ian) Wisdom

    For me, one of Facebook’s on-going pleasures, and this is coming from a former Facebook doubter and critic turned addict, is getting status updates by the great writer Richard Bausch, who I met at Bread Loaf.  I’m sure he doesn’t remember me, or the rather hilarious hour we spent sipping…

  • Post# 34: Utilitarian Description

    I read a short passage in Joe Hill’s Heart Shaped Box the other night and I liked it so much, I wrote it down and am here to burden you with it.  It’s a short passage.  Here it is: “She glared at Jude, saw he was dressed, black Doc Martens,…

  • Post #25: Circumstance

    Ask 10 random people what “Setting” is and they’ll tell you something resembling the following: The Time and Place a story occurs. Not so fast. A third element of setting worth celebrating, though oft neglected, is that of Circumstance, which I humbly submit is actually its most interesting and durable attribute.…

  • Post #18: Finish Lines

    As I wrote my 50,000th word this month I was at a coffee shop alone.  I’d gone in a few thousand short of my goal, ordered coffee and a peanut butter cookie, then set to work, vowing not to leave until I’d finished.  I didn’t.  A thrill went through me…

  • Post #17: Crawling Through the Nearest Window

    Doing National Novel Writing Month is exhilarating.  I think this is mostly because I’ve never written, outside of education, for a capital “D” Deadline and the need to complete X quantity by Y date is a utilitarian sort of enterprise that’s added a different timbre to this writing experience than…