The halfway point of National Novel Writing Month, for me, is usually where it hits a snag. If you’re snaggy, too, maybe the rest of my NaNo tips will come in handy for you. You might want to re-read the first eight tips. Remind yourself that while 50K sounds like a lot, it’s really just …
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4 Tips to Beat Mental Procrastination
This week a writer friend suggested that I blog about the writer’s age-old enemy: procrastination. Thing is, I don’t procrastinate anymore. I don’t avoid writing by doing other things. I have set times to write and I stick to my schedule, but… sometimes I still get nothing written. How come? What’s my problem? A few …
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What We’re Reading: Writing and Life
Writing advice often can be taken as life advice. Today we share some books that connect writing and life. Kathy’s Choice: Becoming a Writer, by Dorothea Brande. Oh, the dollars I have spent trying to find the one piece of advice that would turn me into a genius writer. I must have two dozen books …
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Finding Conflict in Fleeting Moments
I couldn’t sleep, so I stood outside last night on the deck and watched the stars and an occasional airplane glide through against the dark sky. Then I saw a shooting star. Oh, my. A shooting star. If I had blinked, I would have missed it. I captured it in my brain, full of wonder …
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The Artist as Master: The Fictional Process
This is my final post in this series. My intent has been to make the case for Fiction as Art. To that end I have expressed my thoughts on the definition of art, the search for aesthetic absolutes in fiction writing, the neuroscience of creativity, and finally, mastery of craft. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed …
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Tips for Crafting a Frame Story
As you may have figured out from my post last week, 6 Tips for Re-imagining a Classic Story, I’m working on a project for NaNoWriMo that involves a reinterpretation of a classic tale. In my case I’ve decided to tell it a frame story. This is a literary device using a narrative structure to tell …
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Surviving and Thriving: Part 1 NaNoWriMoTips
In my post on my planning process for novels I shared how I got ready for National Novel Writing Month. I went through all the steps, and now, each day, I sit at my keyboard and turn over the next in my set of 40 scene cards. If I were on target, I should have …
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Halloween Treat – Edgar Allan Poe
So, we have crisp fall nights. We have costumes. We have buckets and pillowcases brimming with treats. We have pumpkins grinning and flashights swinging. We have screams, haunted houses, whisps of dry ice floating around ruby red slippers, cowboy boots, and superhero tights. We have arrived at All Hallows’ Eve. Bwahaha. I’m not a big …
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Death: The Highest Stake for a Writer
I’m postponing the next installment on my series, Fiction as Art, as we’ve embarked on a Halloween themed week. The Grim Reaper broke into my house on a frigid January night when I was five and stole the body and perhaps the soul of my four-year-old brother. I had no understanding of death at such …
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6 Tips for Re-imagining a Classic Story
This weekend we reviewed three books based on revisited fairy tales. You can read more about that here. In case you didn’t realize it, this is a huge trend in books, movies and TV shows. Some of the hottest projects around are adaptations from characters and stories combed from the pages of literary classics: Grimm, …
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