A look back inspired by Greg Small’s essayhere.

A friend asked me to tell her how to write a book.

“Um…you just type words,” I told her. “With, you know… a computer. There are some books on writing and stuff. I’ve never read any of them, but I hear they’re great.” Thank you, Queen of Lame.

“Being a writer is a very peculiar sort of job: it’s always you versus a blank sheet of paper (or a blank screen) and quite often the blank piece of paper wins.”—Neil Gaiman [image credit: Querty, painting by Alex Zonis from author’s collection]

I thought about the way I write books. In fact, one of the first questions writers get asked in interviews is whether they are plotters or pantsers.*

*NOTE:plotters do what’s on the tin and plan out the story with outlines and notecards and post-its and other organizational-type…