What have you been reading? And how often do you read? Although we sometimes wish it were possible, writers can’t just close themselves off from the world and only write. We need to fuel the old brain cells in order to continue creating our own stories. One way to do that is to read. To […]
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Racing Toward the NaNoWriMo Finish Line
You’re almost to the halfway mark of your NaNoWriMo challenge today. If you’re on target, you’ve written 21,671 words. Give yourself a pat on the back, and take ten minutes to inhale any chocolate left in your cupboard. Okay, what if you’re not on target with your word count? No need to despair. (And no […]
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 […]
Where the Wild Ideas Play
Still struggling to find your story idea for NaNoWriMo? Don’t you know that somewhere story ideas run and play, wild and free, until some lucky writer manages to lasso one and corral it into his manuscript? Maybe that’s not so crazy. I believe there are an infinite number of ideas available to everyone at all […]
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 […]
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 […]
Zoom Goes 2013
Did you notice more than half of 2013 has rushed past? It’s hard to believe, but we turned the calendar to July more than a week ago. Bet you know what I’m going to talk about today. And you know what happens around here when we reach the half-way point of each year. It’s time […]
Life Challenges Writing Time
I’m sure you’ve never had days when things come at you so fast you don’t have time to take a deep breath. And I’m sure you’ve never had weeks of those days, so filled with commitments that require more time than expected that at the end of each day you realize you’ve not written a […]