For the adventurous writer, no subject is forbidden, no device or technique off-limits.  The only constraints are those of one’s imagination and, of course, whatever devices ultimately work to tell a particular story well.  There are some who will try to narrow a writer’s world to one set of subjects, one genre, one style, one story structure or form, and/or one small group of devices.  But while there are standard ideas about traditional story structure that generally work, there is no recipe for the telling of a good story.

The devices and techniques that many writers call the tools with which they work, I call the toys with which we play.  Admittedly, for a story to be successful, it must hang together; must keep the reader’s interest; and, ultimately, express something that satisfies the reader’s expectations.  But there is no one way to do that, and the adventurous writer will play with all the toys in the toy chest with a sense of freedom and abandon, stretching their limits to see what they can do.

I propose, in this blog, to write about different ways one can play with those toys, along with bits and pieces of my own philosophy about writing, thoughts about what I happen to be reading (reading always helps to provide one with new toys), a bit about the adventure of marketing one’s work, and a bit about writer’s rights, too.

All those writers who like to play–and all those readers who have been curious about how a writer does what he or she does, the writer’s life, inner and outer–Welcome.  Come on in.  Let’s Play!

posted by Jessie Seigel at 8:30 p.m.