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Today is the last day to get in those 50k words.  As you can see by my word count meter (on the left) I’m not going to make it.  It’s not that I haven’t worked every day; it’s that 1700 words a day doesn’t work in my process.  I have to take notes, then write.  Sometimes I need to brainstorm.  Sometimes it’s a trickle, sometimes it’s a torrential downpour. This blog post by Maggie Stiefvater is a Dear John letter to NaNo.  This is exactly how I feel: You are not a bad concept. You’re a bad concept for me, NaNo. This is why: youRead More →

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Listen to me. No, seriously.  Stop what you are doing, stop twittering or IMing or going through your email and listen to me.  I think I’ve got the long synopsis thing kicked.  Or, a first draft of the long synopsis kicked.  Or maybe the outline of a long synopsis which I can use to create a nice long synopsis. Whatever. Listen to me when I tell you this: do not ever, for any reason, no matter what, put off writing your synopsis/query letter for an embarrassingly long time because those things are scary.  The whole thing is scary.  You’re going to wimp out now? YouRead More →

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I know, it’s Wednesday, and I totally had every intention of writing this awesome blog, because I am in the midst of my creative process, and I’ve got good stuff to share. But it’s the first day of school, and yesterday was the day before the first day of school and freshman orientation, and the day before that was middle school orientation, plus I work (somehow), so I just didn’t get to it. Not that you’d trust me, anyway, given the run-on of the previous sentence. So, I’m linking you to an article I’ve been meaning to read for two weeks. Seriously. It’s been openRead More →

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As I spent seven hours a few days ago, reading weird websites and finding ways to waste my time, I realized that I was avoiding writing out of fear.  Fear of what?  That I’m just not good enough.  I’m not good enough to pull it off, my writing isn’t good enough to be published, I’ll ruin this awesome story just begging to get out.  I actually had to walk away from a WIP I had 1/4 of finished because I psyched myself out that bad.  I’ll go back to it later, but for now, we–the manuscript and I–need some distance. But, I’m not the onlyRead More →

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Today I’m linking to an article by Julie Leto about Layering When You Write. This article was a lifesaver for me when I first started writing.  This is how I write.  And I thought I was doing it wrong. See, I can whip out the dialogue.  And dialogue is crucial.  It keeps the pace, it raises tension, it adds emotion, it… well, dialogue can do anything.  It’s like the superhero of writing.  Then it starts getting harder.  I usually write in the action, trying to see the scene like watching a movie.  This works, but it leaves me with a bunch of dialogue, a bitRead More →

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I suddenly hate that word, “telling,” like I hate running out of coffee. Apparently, telling instead of showing is an easy mistake, especially for beginning writers. Here’s a wonderful post from Flogging the Quill. How to Show, When to TellRead More →

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Which I am suffering.  But fear not, the wise Jennifer Crusie has listed some random thoughts on rewriting, which are awesome. My faves: After you’ve read something forty-two times, it all sounds like blahblahblah. If you don’t feel like writing a scene with sex in it, you don’t write a scene with sex it in. Kind of like real life. Playing computer Scrabble does not help you think your way through a plot knot. Crocheting does. Comic used with permission from Debbie Ridpath Ohi at Inkygirl.com.Read More →

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Libba Bray, who has the coolest writing name ever, this amusing, and too true for comfort comparison to writing and falling in love. Thanks for meeting me here. Look, I’m just gonna come out with it. This–you, me–it’s not working. I’m sorry. It’s not you, it’s…actually it’s you. You’re stupid. And I sort of hate you. But, you know, thanks for the great line on p. 400. This?  This is me.  Right now.Read More →

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So, I’m attempting to write my first synopsis. And it’s bringing back all these horrible memories of being paralyzed with fear–literally, can’t write a word, paralyzed–when I first started writing and I read all of these how-to books and web sites. Here’s what I’ve gathered, so far: It’s the opposite of show-not-tell.  Tell, tell, tell!  Okay, so do what I spent ages learning how not to do?) Tell your whole story, don’t leave unanswered questions.  But leave out the parts, like secondary characters and subplots, that aren’t important to the developing relationship.  (Well, if they’re not important, why are they in the book at all?)Read More →