I seem to be in the spirit of the long, slow weekend—already. Last night I finished my comments for a Beta read of a friend’s novel at 0230. Yes, I was supposed to be writing and posting to my own blog yesterday. But I was in the flow and wanted to get my comments to […]
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How to Excite Local Writers
How do you excite local writers? You offer resources to help them write, publish, and promote their work, a fun group of people supporting each other, and a lagniappe of author, editor, and agent appearances for motivation. And you make it free to the writing community. Finally, I get to tell you about the exciting […]
Short and Sweet Writing Plan
I just realized that June arrives next week, and that means there is little time left to meet my writing goals for the first half of 2014. But you know what? I’m not going to spend a lot of time stressing over what I have and haven’t accomplished so far. I find thinking about what […]
Take Your NaNo Skills for a Test Run
More than 170,000 writers are lining up in the starting gates at NaNoWriMo, blowing the dust from their computer keyboard, shaking their pens to get the ink flowing. In the less than 48 hours left until the starting bell, wouldn’t you like to check out the race-track? Here’s the challenge: Write a short story for […]
Working to Deadlines is a Winning Skill
If you’ve never worked to a deadline, you haven’t had the opportunity to build that skill into your writing life. If you think you’ll never be held to a deadline that probably means you don’t see yourself ever writing for a magazine, a newspaper, or for any publishing house. It means you’ll never find yourself […]
Thinking About Writing
I’ve been thinking a lot about writing. Have you? Have you spent time mentally creating a story, holding plot lines to the light, shifting them here or there, looking for the best fit? Have you focused your attention on where you’re going? Don’t be in a rush to whip through your manuscript. It takes time […]
6 Ways to Plan 50,000 Words
November will be here before you know it, along with an opportunity to hunker down and write the first draft of something new and exciting. And there’s still time to plan for success in reaching a 50,000 word goal within thirty days. Yes, I’m talking about the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) challenge. Does the […]
Under, Over, Around, or Through: Beating Writers Block
More than once in the past weeks I’ve heard writers say they’re blocked. They just can’t think of anything to write. Maybe they’re thinking too much. Maybe it’s all about perception. Because we understand how the human mind works, we know that there is no time during consciousness when our minds are entirely free of […]
The Write Space
Early yesterday I read a letter from a writer to Randy Ingermanson, the Mad Professor of Fiction Writing. The young man asked Randy for tips for staying focused on writing through upheavals in location, writing space, and writing time. Randy gave Isaiah some great advice about finding a place to write, planning time to write… […]
Rejections Pave the Road to Publication
A new writer friend and I were chatting the other day and the conversation turned to rejection slips. We agreed that while having a manuscript or article rejected really isn’t a personal dig from the editor or agent, it sometimes feels that way. Because I’d been doing this for a while, I told her that […]