lori sizemore

Are you a Twilight enthusiast? A Bella-Wannabe? Mooning endlessly over Bella’s identification withWuthering Heights and thinking the only thing as great as being the author of Edward would be being the author of Heathcliff?

Just so you know: the author of Heathcliff was dissed by her publisher, left unpublished until he could ride the coattails of her sister Charlotte, then published in a terrible edition with sloppy typesetting and cheap paper, and ignored by the reading public, who found Heathcliff—beyond reprehensible—downright disgusting. Emily Bronte was a bonafide literary genius whose greatest work, a saga in verse, was altered after her death against her passionately-clear wishes by busybody Charlotte and re-published in its mutilated form, although half the poems had vanished by then and have never been recovered. Emily Bronte died young, unloved, unhappy, unfulfilled. Undiscovered.

And the author of Edward can’t write for beans. She stumbled on a misogynist aspect of our culture she could exploit in impressionable kids, along with a really good marketer. That really good marketer is now busy with Twilight, and you are in their backwash.

via A. Victoria Mixon, Editor » Blog Archive » 6 Personality Types Who Will Fail as Writers.

This article is great, Ms. Mixon is better.  People who speak their minds and can back it up with facts–priceless.

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: you make me write crap, NaNo. You make me make bad novel decisions. You take away my ability to brainstorm between chapters. You make me rush through characterization. You make me pack filler in that will only get ripped out later, having taught me nothing about my novel. You make me into a bad writer.

However, to everyone who completed NaNo, to everyone who participated–I applaud you.  You wrote and that’s damn fine.

I’m just… so. freaking. lazy.

I admit it. I’ve got zero inspirational words / visionary wisdom to impart. And so, I’m passing the buck. I present to you: Top 10 Geeky Things You Don’t Know About Romance Writers.  You’re welcome.

I’ve been looking for something to give me that Bitch, OK! feeling. My plan is to write during the week, and plot/revise/layer on the weekends. And it works. I think it works really well for me. But it doesn’t make it any easier to just sit down and do it.

In a purely whimsical way, I present these to you:

Magic Bean Wishes
Plant these bean seeds and watch them magically rise up from the soil with an inspirational message stamped on each bean. Grow indoors or out. Includes 15 assorted beans with messages such as “faith,” “love,” “heal” and more.

I kind of really want these…

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.

I know, I suck.  Monday is dance day (not for me, for my daughter, although it’s proven inspirational, so yay!)–anyway, I’m late.  Sorry.  Really.

Here’s what I want.  I think it describes the writing process perfectly.  And, I drink coffee, especially when I’m writing, like I breathe air.

So, link to the shop is on the mug.

To learn more about Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer, whose writing workshop spawned this, you can view their author bios.  Or you can visit Jenny’s website or blog.  Finally, go see Bob at his website.  They are both very talented and very giving with their writing insight.