(Hi, folks! For the time being, some, most, or all of the fol­low­ing links will still revert back to the orig­i­nal Writ­ing About Writ­ing web­page over on Blog­ger. This is not a mis­take. It just takes a long time to move thou­sands of arti­cles. Thank you for your patience as we nav­i­gate this tran­si­tion.)

The Best of the Mailbox

If you want a ques­tion answered on The Mail­box, just put “For The Mail­box” in your sub­ject line in an email to chris.brecheen@gmail.com.  I will use your first name unless you tell me explic­it­ly that you want me to use your whole name and/or you would pre­fer to remain com­plete­ly anony­mous. I can’t promise I’ll post every­thing I get, that I’ll respond to abject wankery, or that I’m going to keep post­ing every anony­mous attempt to hurt my feel­ings if I have any­thing else to use instead, but if you write a thought­ful ques­tion or comment—even if it dis­agrees with me—I’ll will hon­est­ly do my best to try to get it up here and write a lit­tle some­thing in reply.

If we ever get to a point where there’s just too much mail to answer it all, I’ll pick the best ques­tions and com­ments (which I promise won’t sim­ply be the most com­ple­men­tary).

Rage Against the Brecheen: Hate mail—and my response to it—does so well, it deserves its own menu. Come see the teem­ing mil­lions of the inter­net (usu­al­ly anony­mous­ly) try to take me down a peg or two.

The Not So Best of the Mail­box: Not every mail­box is des­tined for great­ness.  Some of them have end­ed up down in the base­ment.

Twen­ty Ques­tions: Many ques­tions don’t need a whole post just to answer, so I bun­dle them up and send them on their way in one big post.

The Best of the Mailbox

Com­ic Sans
My Top Three Achieve­ments
Gram­mar Ques­tions I Have No Busi­ness Answer­ing
What Does “Good Writ­ing” Look Like
Giv­ing Thanks and the Oxford Com­ma
Unsup­port­ive GF’s Wrath and My Stance on Gram­mar
The Val­ue of TV/Movies to a Writer
What Do I Want From Writ­ing About Writ­ing?
Scrap­ing the Bot­tom of the Bar­rel
Why can’t I make mon­ey?  My friends like me
Over­com­ing Iner­tia/ Sans Love of Writ­ing
Strange­ly Inap­pro­pri­ate Non-Writ­ing Ques­tions
“Creepy Guy Feed­back” Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
Feed­back and Fol­low Up (Q’s about past Mail­box­es)
Is There Any­thing GOOD About an MFA?
Is Dead Poets Soci­ety a Shit­ty Movie or What
Why Is the Pub­lish­ing Indus­try so White­washed?
How Do I Describe Things?
The PC Police
Char­ac­ter Dri­ven Zom­bie Sto­ries
What About Harp­er Lee’s New Book
I Just Can’t Write
When to Throw in the Tow­el
Social Jus­tice Quick­ies
The Less­er Writer
That “What the Author Meant” Meme
Bits and Pieces
Revi­sion Land
Pro­pos­al vs. Propo­si­tion
Writ­ing Every Day
Face­book Ques­tions
Speech to Text Software/Season 2
Just How Much Do You Make?
Should I Out­line My Book?
What­ev­er Works
Cri­tique Groups
Tra­di­tion­al vs Dig­i­tal Pub­lish­ing
Lit­tle Kid’s Gram­mar
Com­ing Out As Fem­i­nist
Ques­tions From Face­book
The W.A.W. “Chris’s” Per­sona
What is avant garde?
Trope­cep­tion Part 1, Part 2
Cul­tur­al Appro­pri­a­tion
Jones and Pratch­ett on “Real” Lit­er­a­ture
How Do I Write A First Sen­tence?
Writ­ing For Income
This “Pop­ulist Writ­ing Phi­los­o­phy“
I’ve Lost That Lov­ing Feel­ing

Ques­tions? Com­ments? Want a future arti­cle to go into more detail? Mail me through our con­tact form. Just be sure to pick the right top­ic from the drop down menu, and check the archives—particularly the F.A.Q.—to see if your ques­tion has been asked before.

If you’re enjoy­ing this blog, and would like to see more arti­cles like this one, the writer is a guy with rent and insur­ance to pay who would love to spend more time writ­ing. Please con­sid­er con­tribut­ing to my Patre­on. As lit­tle as $3/month (less-than-a-lat­te a month) will get you in on backchan­nel con­ver­sa­tions, patron-only polls, and my spe­cial ear when I ask for advice about future projects or blog changes.

Or if a one-time dona­tion (or some type of non-mon­e­tary dona­tion) is more your speed, I have a Tip Jar with all the ways to help.