Anne Woodland

       So I'd heard the phrase "Don't be afraid to kill your darlings." before, but never fully understood what it meant, especially in regards to writing.  I always took it a bit too literally, as in: actually killing your characters, or killing the project, or something of that nature.  I was, of course, like, "I'm not doing that."     As I've been revising my current draft however, I realized, at least in part, what it means.  As I mentioned ages ago, I came up with the first two or three books of my series during my sophmore year of high school, which, if we were rounding, would be two decades ago.  I wrote massive sections of my manuscript while I was still in high school, and while I've reworked wording and cut or added things throughout the years, I hadn't actually taken the step back to see if the structure of those sections actually function adequately in the broader scope of the story.  I was so pleased with what I'd writt...

       As I mentioned very briefly a few posts ago, I find it very frustrating when the love interests in a story have very poor communication from the get go.  I don't understand how these relationships actually develop and are maintained if the beginning stages are already so full of miscommunications and an inability to clarify things! The start of the relationship is the easiest part! You're just getting to know each other and if you're compatible; there's not a great deal of emotional investment. There's no sunk cost fallacy to contend with. So why would you continue to pursue a dynamic that is already dysfunctional? It makes no sense to me.        Honestly, I feel like a lot of this stems from a pervasive mentality that physical and sexual attraction are some of the most important considerations going into a relationship, when really they shouldn't be. I'm attracted to my husband, but a huge part of that is due to his personality, and h...

      So, I've been doing some research on various publishing methods and options and now I'm getting all these horrid targeted ads about using AI to write an entire ebook without actually writing anything! It makes me so mad! They try to make it sound like this amazing thing with lines like "I have no creativity, but look at this book I wrote with AI." And I'm like, "You did crap, dude. Also, I'm 99.999999% sure you are AI, so shut your artificial mouth and leave the creative endeavors to the humans who are actually capable of producing original thoughts instead of just regurgitating whatever inputs they've been given!"       Publishing quality has already gone downhill with publishers being less thorough while pushing for incessant book releases. We do not need to worsen the situation by adding shoddy AI catastrophes to the mix! Poorly written and edited books drive away readers. Authors already have to compete with each other and other forms o...

      So my husband and I recently watched Part One of the movie version of Wicked. It was an interesting experience... Maybe we're overly critical, but there were a few issues that we both had with the film.      Firstly, there was the fact that a movie set is supposed to make you feel like you're actually in the world of the story, and there were a few scenes that accomplished that, but more frequently it felt like an overdone stage production. Which when you're actually watching a stage production isn't an issue, especially because you aren't getting close ups of the set and props, etc., but for a movie this can be a huge issue. It was frustrating to have overly fake thatching and the like shoved in our faces, or how massive "stone" or "brick" buildings had a complete lack of any lichens, moss, or even just normal weathering on them. It had a phoney perfection that was visually jarring. Despite all the flourishes of the sets, all that stood ou...

       Grief is a strange thing. You are going about your life and then suddenly this aching just slaps you in the face. I woke up recently with a strong desire to hear my mother play The Entertainer by Scott Joplin. It was my favorite piece to listen to her play, and she was usually willing to take requests, as long as she wasn't in the middle of rehearsing for a performance.       The thing is, when she passed her quality of life was already so diminished that even if she were still alive now I still wouldn't be able to listen to her playing such a complicated piece, if she were able to play anything at all. Everything that I miss the most about my mom was already gone before she died.       I distinctly remember visiting my parents for Easter two years before she passed. I was four or five months pregnant with my oldest and one night I just broke down sobbing to my husband because I realized that no matter how things progres...

       I read a lot, and since around 2014 the majority of what I've read has been in Ebook form. The great thing about the explosion of Ebooks and other forms of digital publication is that it's made getting your work seen a lot more accessible to writers. There are a number of authors who self-publish whose work I actively anticipate. In fact, I would say my current favorites publish this way.      However, I do think one problem that isn't properly recognized about self-publishing is that you don't always get as many eyes on your work in the early stages, which can lead to pitfalls like pattern writing. What do I mean by that? Well, I have examples.       There are two different writer's who've done fairytale retellings, which is a genre I really enjoy, particularly if they're doing one of the lesser known fairytales. After I read the first book by each of the authors, I quickly purchased their next one... and it was basically th...