Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on December 9th, 2019 in Main, Writing 
To celebrate my 2,000th follower on Twitter, I decided to do something fun. Two weeks ago, I sent out a tweet to all my followers and asked them to send me a random word, which I would in turn weave into a short story. Over a period of 48 hours, I received a total of 47 submitted words. One of the submissions (“giant bunny”) jumped out at me and became one of the main characters in the story. Another word (“SpaceX”) inspired me to place the story in space. From there, it was a matter of coming up with a… (read more)
Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on December 3rd, 2018 in Main, Writing 
In January of 2018 I began work on my senior project — a novel that ultimately became known as The Human Library. This wasn’t the first novel I worked on during grad school, but by the time it was finished and I had defended it before a panel of professors (all of whom are also published authors), it was the one that felt the most complete. After a few months of dealing with agents, I’ve decided to publish The Human Library myself through Amazon. While it’s a well-structured and complete novel, it’s just quirky enough that it’s probably not going… (read more)
Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on May 7th, 2018 in College, Main, My Life, Writing 
In the fall of 2017 I began work on my grad project, a novel titled The Human Library. On April 19, I delivered copies to the three members of my graduate committee. Two weeks later on May 4, I returned to the University of Oklahoma to defend my work. I spent those two weeks preparing. I wrote an outline of my novel. I made lists of all my characters. I noted every problem with my novel, and came up with ways to improve it. I went through the hundreds of handouts I’ve received and notes I’d taken over the past… (read more)
Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on April 20th, 2018 in College, Main, Writing 
One of the main characters in my novel has a glaring flaw. A couple of scenes still feel clunky. I may or may not have a plot hole. If it weren’t for deadlines, I might have gone on editing my novel forever. There’s always something that can be improved. Rough parts can be made better. Good parts can be made great. Wednesday night, my deadline came. With Susan waiting out in the driveway, I saved the final copy of my novel to a thumb drive, and off we went. Thirty minutes later, I walked out of Office Depot with 570… (read more)
Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on March 23rd, 2018 in College, Main, Writing 
Susan, her mom, and the kids are in Ireland this week for spring break, and I’m in Oklahoma. As I mentioned last week, I am wrapping up my novel for my final school project. If everything goes according to schedule, I’ll be turning my novel in during the second week of April, and defending it two weeks later (after the members of my committee have had time to read it). I started work on my novel last September, and over seven months, things have a way of changing. For example, one of my characters started the book with long blonde… (read more)
Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on February 26th, 2018 in Main, Writing 
Late Saturday night, about an hour after midnight, I added two words to the end of the novel I’ve been working on since last October: THE END. My book (working title: “The Human Library”) is by no means finished. In fact, it’s funny how those lines in the sand we set for ourselves constantly move. For the past several months my goal has been to finish writing the book. Now that I’ve hit that goal, I can see it’s only the first of multiple goals. A lot of editing remains, and editing, I’ve learned, means many different things. On the… (read more)
Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on November 13th, 2017 in College, Main, My Life, WritingThis semester, along with two other classes, I began work on my senior project — a fiction novel. Each week, I write a new chapter for my novel and present it to the head of my committee. During our weekly sessions, my professor reads the chapter and provides me with immediate feedback. Project is the intersection where form meets art. For two years I’ve been reading and learning about story structure, plotting, character development, and pacing. Project is where students write their own stories, applying the structures lessons we’ve (hopefully) learned. Next semester, after my novel is finished, I’ll present… (read more)
Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on March 12th, 2017 in Main, WritingThe first stage magic show I remember seeing was at Oklahoma’s Frontier City. Although almost every part of the theme park has a western motif, the magic show is just a magic show. I saw the magic show multiple times over the years, each year with a new magician, and the theater was always packed. Kids loved the show because they love magic; adults loved it, I suspect, because it was one of the few places in the park that had seats and air conditioning. Each year, the magician on stage magically linked and unlinked metal rings and made rabbits… (read more)
Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on February 17th, 2017 in Main, WritingI’ve spent the past couple of weeks diving into several of the “how to write” books, podcasts, and tutorials I’ve picked up and/or bookmarked over the past year. I read Scene and Structure by Jack Bickham, and Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell, and referenced Deborah Chester’s The Fantasy Fiction Formula for a novel I’m working on. I finished Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass, and read a few chapters of Stephen King’s Dance Macabre (I’ve read King’s On Writing multiple times). I started reading Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat, and despite its tagline (“the last book on… (read more)
Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on May 17th, 2016 in College, Main, Reviews, Writing 
When I tell my friends that my writing professor (Deborah Chester) wrote the book on writing genre fiction, I’m being quite literal. Okay, so maybe she didn’t write the book on writing genre fiction, but she wrote a book on the subject, and a darned good one too. It’s called The Fantasy Fiction Formula, and it’s exactly what it sounds like. In 264 pages, Chester walks you step-by-step through the process of writing a fiction novel. If you have stared at a blank computer screen wondering where to start, or started writing a novel only to hit a dead end… (read more)
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