I haven’t had to plot out a new story for a long time. I’d forgotten how hard it can be. I’m in the brainstorming stage: writing down lists of ideas, no matter how good or bad they seem to be. Soon, hopefully, those ideas will coalesce into something that resembles a feasible plot. Going by [...]
I have finished the second draft of the book, finished revisions on it, and begun sending it out to the people who have agreed to read it. Eeek! I’m feeling an interesting mix of relief and excitement from finishing, nervousness from people reading it, and dread from the next cycle of revisions coming up. Not [...]
I read some interesting comments lately about conflict in stories, and how what you might think of as conflict – characters arguing, for example – can be exactly what you don’t need. We’re often told that stories need conflict. But obvious, shouting-at-each-other conflict can actually decrease the level of tension. Two people stepping around each [...]
I read an excellent post by the author Maggie Stiefvater titled The Giant Butt-Kicking How to Write a Novel Post. It boils down to this quote: “All of these questions are really one question: “How do I write a book?” And the answer, which I will explain in depth, is a simple two-parter: 1 – [...]
Many writer have rituals around where, when and how they do their writing. There is always the danger of becoming too attached to them, of course. If you have to sit in the blue chair with your coffee in the green mug in front of the poster of Hawaii (to remind you of what you [...]
Wrote 960 words yesterday! Yay me! I then wrote 230 words first thing this morning, and due to a software glitch, lost them. Grr. Thank goodness for automatic backups so I didn’t lose the whole chapter. I only had to remember and re-type the morning’s work. Which of course lost me the time to write [...]