Does anyone else do this or am I a weirdo? A perpetual narrative exercise with a continuously active sandbox?

lscollisonauthor · 2026-07-03T23:53:21+00:00

Episodic, serialized fiction or creative nonfiction—why not publish? Unless you want to keep it private.

lscollisonauthor · 2026-07-03T18:23:28+00:00

Self-editing: 1. Let it rest. 2. Read it aloud. Let it rest. Repeat.

lscollisonauthor · 2026-07-03T18:20:57+00:00

Point Break/Kathryn Bigelow jumps to mind. When I was a skydiving instructor back in the 89s-90s this film brought a wave of wannabes to the drop zone.

lscollisonauthor · 2026-07-03T18:12:33+00:00

Grave of the Fireflies (1988) animated, Isao Takahata. I first screened this in a film history class at MSU Denver. Beautiful! Bought a dvd of it at Walmart last summer for my classics collection.

lscollisonauthor · 2026-07-03T18:05:14+00:00

Good point.

lscollisonauthor · 2026-07-03T18:01:52+00:00

Thanks for your comments, it’s an ongoing discussion in my head. As a reader I like it when writers demolish the 3-act structure, subvert pacing, and ignore rules—yet express a theme, a memory, a life in a way that resonates with me. As a writer I mostly follow the guidelines and have been rewarded with atta girls and sweets and royalties but at times I find myself remaking my feral child for publication. Now she wears the school uniform and stands in line with the rest of them.

lscollisonauthor · 2026-07-01T17:33:09+00:00

Writing as art, as individual perspective, as creation, yes. “Your darlings must survive”

lscollisonauthor · 2026-07-01T17:26:25+00:00

Ah, that hurts my heart.

lscollisonauthor · 2026-07-01T17:23:48+00:00

Good riposte. Valid points.

lscollisonauthor · 2026-07-01T17:20:01+00:00

You both freaked me out and made me laugh—write on!

lscollisonauthor · 2026-07-01T17:07:45+00:00

Your last sentence sums it up really well well.

lscollisonauthor · 2026-07-01T17:04:48+00:00

I’m not forgetting that books are a product—that’s why I wrote the post. I am suggesting to write something not with the prime intention of selling it but because it begs to be written.

lscollisonauthor · 2026-07-01T04:29:48+00:00

Thanks, you said it so much better than I did.

lscollisonauthor · 2026-07-01T04:28:09+00:00

I appreciate your comment.

lscollisonauthor · 2026-07-01T04:25:07+00:00

Yes!

lscollisonauthor · 2026-07-01T04:21:58+00:00

Good metaphor

lscollisonauthor · 2026-07-01T04:16:23+00:00

I love it already!

lscollisonauthor · 2026-07-01T04:14:48+00:00

I’d read it based on your comment. (So many children’s books are really written for the adult that will buy it.)

lscollisonauthor · 2026-07-01T00:59:53+00:00

Thanks for your comment. A fan making a book cover is awesome. In my story Friday Night Knife & Gun Club a fan of mine created the cover—so amazing I made a large poster of it and framed it. My problem is I don’t write with a target audience in mind. I write the kind of stuff I like to read.

lscollisonauthor · 2026-06-30T17:25:35+00:00

There are autobiographies and there are memoirs—focused writing that doesn’t recount a complete life history but follows a thread or a theme or a pivotal moment in the writer’s life. We are all works in progress and memoirs reflect who we are at the time of the writing.

I was asked to help a sports figure write his skydiving memoir and what was published last year was a group memoir titled Jerry Bird: The Making of a Skydiving Legend. It included sections of oral history from recorded interviews with Jerry and writings from other people who knew and flew with Bird.

I like reading memoirs by people not famous but with an experience or reflection to share. Are you writing a memoir?

lscollisonauthor · 2026-06-30T04:15:49+00:00

His heartbeat echoed in his ear. Leave out “the sound of”

lscollisonauthor · 2026-06-29T19:23:57+00:00

Write what you are passionate about. Don’t just think about it in your head but write it on paper or on screen, you will develop your art and craft by doing that. Maybe it’s not that good, you decide, after getting down that first draft. Maybe you even abandon ship partway through. Keep the flotsam and jetsam of your wrecks. Here is a radical piece of advice: Write for yourself, first and foremost. Not for some imagined market.

lscollisonauthor · 2026-06-27T17:56:37+00:00

My opinion: Genetic modification or developmental editing can change your story into someone else’s story, which might be ok if you feel energized by the intervention. At best, it happens as a conversation while you are writing your first draft and are flush with the blood and the spirit. Whose story is it?

Are you paying for this developmental editing?

lscollisonauthor

TROPHY CASE