Author Archive: Suzanna Anderson Creates
What’s Your Favorite Novel?
So what is your favorite novel? I don’t like to pick just one, but if I’m forced to do so, the answer is: “Lolita” by Vladimir Nabokov. Why? Because the language is gorgeous. Think about it. Russian author. Written originally in English. French-speaking narrator. Wow. I hate Humbert. Yes, I hate the protagonist but love …
Prompt–Sunday, August 21
Pick an object and a verb that isn’t related to it. For example, I’ll use “orange” and “jump.” Use both. Rolling down a hill The orange said “whee!” But when he hit the bottom, A child jumped And orange became juice.
Prompt–Thursday, August 18
I was on Twitter today and noticed W.W. Norton shared the following link. http://wwnorton.tumblr.com/post/9081381284/it-is-the-novelists-innate-cowardice-that-makes They shared a quote from Anthony Burgess. So write about cowardice. Here’s mine. I was a coward once. A space traveler who had a fear of open spaces. A bug terminator afraid to be near anything with more than four legs. …
Texts for the Fall Semester
I’m getting ready for the fall semester at Bowling Green State University. The first day of class is Monday. For my fiction workshop, I’ll be reading “Twilight” by William Gay, “Bean Trees” by Barbara Kingsolver, “Building Fiction” by Jesse Lee Kercheval, “Making Shapely Fiction” by Jerome Stern, and “On Becoming A Novelist” by John Gardner. …
Surprise Prompt–Monday, August 15
I watched and listened to this clip from NPR: http://www.npr.org/2011/08/12/139241960/paul-jacobs-tiny-desk-concert Paul Jacobs commented “It’s a beautiful addiction to have.” What do you think is a ‘beautiful addiction’? Write about it. If it is any evidence to you of the stacks on my floor and several bookcases filled to the brim, I am addicted to bound …
Research Leads to Strange Places
I have never liked spiders or ants. I would scream, freeze, or smash them whenever I saw them. Yet earlier this summer I wrote a short story about spiders. The last couple of days I’ve been working on a short story about ants. Writing a story about something I don’t like or fear removes the …
Revision Tips
Two important writing tools that I use when I revise are readability and http://www.wordle.net. I learned of the readability feature in Microsoft Word from “The Writer’s Little Helper” by James V. Smith, Jr. To turn on the readability feature is simple. When you spell check a document, click on options and select “show readability statistics.” …
Prompt–Sunday, August 14
“He ached from head to foot, all zones of pain seemingly interdependent. He was rather like a Christmas tree whose lights, wired in series, must all go out if even one bulb is defective.” (161) The quote above is from J.D. Salinger’s “Nine Stories,” specifically the short story “For Esme—with Love and Squalor.” Reading these …
Novel Away!
I started my first novel in May 2004. I worked on the story idea, expanding it into a two-book series. I wrote both during National Novel Writing Months, in November 2009 and November 2010. (Find out more here: http://www.nanowrimo.org/.) But I decided to take a break since I wrote on and off for years. And …
Prompt–Thursday, August 11
Use an image you return to, whether it’s a favorite photo, painting, or a piece of visual art. My childhood home has a magnolia tree in the front yard. It is an image I use very often in my poems and fiction. Beetle-resistant pods yield to 4-year-old nails as they rip to enter the seed’s …
Suzanna and Writing 