Michelle Levigne, Author

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Writing/NonFiction

Writing/NonFiction

DO YOURSELF A FAVOR
From Mt. Zion Ridge Press:

I've written a book about writing!
Like the Pirates' Code, many alleged "rules" of writing are more like guidelines…

But don't believe anyone who insists there are NO rules for writing. There are rules: the mechanics. The craft, as opposed to the art. The tools for sculpting clay or stone, or spinning and dyeing thread for weaving, or learning to play scales and read music and keep your instrument in tune, when creating music. The rest -- the "art" portion -- is flexible and adapts to what works best for YOU the writer. The technique for playing the instrument, the point of view and voice for the story, the genre you write in, the images you create from stone and clay, the pattern of the cloth you weave, and the colors you choose to use.

When you understand the why of the rules, then you can bend or break them.
So Do Yourself A Favor and learn what's hard-and-fast, and what is flexible. It'll save you pain and effort and wasted time in the long run.
 
This collection of advice started as blog postings (read: semi-rants) while editing people who had something to say … but didn't take the time to figure out how to say it. Basically, whenever I ran into something noteworthy in my own writing journey, or things I encountered too often in editing, I blogged about it, hoping the things that frustrated or fascinated me would be helpful to others. Along with those blog posts, revised because of timeliness or to cover a broader subject, or to fit in new discoveries along the way, or because I repeated myself … I offer bits of advice about topics that other authors have found worthy of discussion. Or argument. Or mockery. Or complaint. Or wailing. Or amusement of the I'm-losing-my-mind variety.
 
Snark warning!


TO ETERNITY (and beyond)
Writing Spec Fic Good For Your Soul …

From Ye Olde Dragon Books

Many moons ago, when I was in grad school, I had a dream. An idea, motivated by a statement from C.S. Lewis about using speculative fiction for evangelism.

Could I actually use my love of SF, my far-roaming imagination, for the glory of my Savior … and reach people who wouldn't come within a mile of a church if it was the last building standing at the end of the world?
If Lewis thought so, why not at least try?

Then a classmate decided that my science fiction books had invited demons into my life. Really? CS Lewis? JRR Tolkein? Steve Lawhead? (At this time, there wasn't much good SF from identifiably Christian writers. Amazon wasn't around. Many Christian bookstores didn't support fiction, period, let alone have room on the shelves for "that weird stuff." This was a year before Peretti published This Present Darkness.)
So what could a recovering Trekker do, when someone tried to impose their square hole on her star-shaped peg?

Contained in the pages of this book is my answer.
My master's portfolio thesis and defense of speculative fiction as not only an evangelistic tool, but good for your soul.
Dedicated to the nerds and geeks and dreamers who have been bruised by 50-pound Bibles and still love Jesus.

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