The Fine Print
The NC discussions are open to anyone. It's a friendly place, easy to join. Just sign in on the comment box with your email address and write your comment. If you stick around, people will get to know you and you're in (except, of course, for the usual credit and criminal record checks, birth and citizenship authentication, school transcripts starting from kindergarten, photocopies of tax records, ID, credit cards, debit cards, etc.). If you turn up often and seem to get the drift of the magazine, you'll be invited to submit. Please respect the generally high level of camaraderie and amiability already in evidence.
The management wishes to acknowledge the financial support of Douglas "Deep-Pockets" Glover and no one else.
This is long, but worth it; parts of it had me rolling on the floor. I like Leonard’s rule about exclamation points—no more than two or three per 1,000 words of prose—but prefer Martone’s (not in here, unfortunately): you are allowed only three in your lifetime.
If you like this sort of thing, I recommend “Rules of Thumb: 73 authors reveal their fiction-writing fixations,” edited by Michael Martone and Susan Neville.
I liked the line, “If it feels like writing, rewrite it.”
I love PD James’ “Nothing that Happens to a writer–however happy, however tragic–is ever wasted.
Just so you all know–this is Christy Clothier, one of my new students this semester, one of the authors on the blog now. It’s a great pleasure to have her join us.