EVANGELINE THAN

And it is a fantastic, engaging, intelligent read.

I best remember David Byrne as the frontman of Talking Heads, another band I listened to a lot at school (it wasn’t all Depeche Mode and sawing away at wrists, you know). He’s still around, making music, and that makes me very happy.

I plan to bury myself in the archives soon (he’s been blogging since 2004!) and see what he’s been up to all these years.

Byrne is on tour with Brian Eno at the moment, so his blog is in travel journal mode and full of vivid photographs.

Check it out: http://journal.davidbyrne.com/

Mark Waid is a comic book writer. You may have seen his name in the credits for the Flash comic books, and also in Kingdom Come, a mini-series about the current stable of Justice League superheroes, set 20 years in the future.

Waid posts regularly to Kung Fu Monkey, a blog about screenwriting, comic books, and any other geekery that the authors (and I) find amusing. His latest post on Kung Fu Monkey, “Waid Wednesdays #18: Don’t Waste My Time”, gives writers valuable advice on how to handle protagonist conflicts, and explains the difference between false suspense and genuine suspense.

Want to make your story stand out from the rest? Read Waid’s post here.

If you haven’t got time to read the whole post, here’s the bottom line:

Bottom line: don’t waste my time by asking questions with obvious answers or posing “suspenseful” choices with only one real option. That’s just marking time. People (and characters) (and situations) are only interesting when they surprise you.

Source: “Waid Wednesdays #18: Don’t Waste My Time” at the Kung Fu Monkey blog, URL: http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2009/04/waid-wednesdays-18-dont-waste-my-time.html (posted April 8th, 2009).