It’s here. The final week of NaNoWriMo. And you’re stretching to reach the finish line. With tomorrow being Thanksgiving Day, here in America, it seems a good time to pause and reflect on reasons to be thankful for your NaNoWriMo experience. 1. Your manuscript word count is higher than when you began this challenge. […]
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When the Story Runs Wild
Have you ever had one of the days where the story and your characters want to journey anywhere except where you planned to take them? Well, that’s the way it’s going for me today. Like wrestling with a greased pig. Every time I think I have all those thrashing little hooves pinned down, they slip […]
NaNoWriMo: 6 Ways to Make Sure You Finish
It’s only two days until National Novel Writing Month kicks off around the globe. By now you’ve done everything you can to prepare, haven’t you? And you’ve created a story outline or maybe just noodled around with your characters and some plot points to get an idea of what will happen in your novel. If […]
6 Ways to Spring into New Writing Energy
If you live in the northern hemisphere, you’re probably more than eager to see the last cold winds of winter blow away. And if there’s not another flake of snow for the next six months, your feelings won’t be hurt. It’s been a long, cold, dreary winter around here. But the advent of spring brings […]
The Courage to Throw It All Out – And to Start Again
Have you ever had one of those days, weeks, or months when nothing you write seems to work? Have you ever been stuck on one sentence, one paragraph, or one or more chapters that go nowhere? Maybe your agent or editor has called your attention to uneven passages in your manuscript and asked you to […]
Your First Draft is a Baby Step
When is your manuscript ready for publication? Oh, how I hope I did not just hear someone say as soon as you finish your first draft. That’s the first teensiest step on the way to publication. Once you complete your first draft, the real fun begins. And it continues for a while… because you wouldn’t […]
Holidays Inspire Stories
Around the world people are celebrating. Some, the birth of a child in a stable. Others, a day of gifts and gatherings with family and friends. Others celebrate their own beliefs in traditional festivities. No matter what you celebrate, or who you celebrate with, enjoy this season of goodwill. And while you are unwrapping presents, […]
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 […]
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 […]
Time to Edit: Oh, the Joy!
My friend Emily Rattray Wenstrom recently wrote about her editing process. She described the first draft as the bones of her story, and later versions as being fleshed out and plumped up. I loved her description of discovering her characters and her setting anew as she began her first edit. That perfectly describes how I […]