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I don’t know how I ended up in my archives.  Something I read had me coming back to see if I’d written something on the same topic and, well.  Here we are. About a year-and-a-half ago (oh-my-God: have I been here this long?), I wrote about my plans to send out my very first query.  I was nervous, of course.  I expected rejection, but in that way where you know it happens, but if the universe lines up just right, it won’t happen to you. A few months later, I wrote this post about handling rejection and how to use it to figure out whereRead More →

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So, I write this novel, a rom-com, and it’s finished and I like it, but it’s not selling.  Which is okay–first novel. Then I started one and it just died out because the characters, well, mostly the main characters, were just dead to me.  And that means flat and dull for you. So, then, I started a new manuscript, but … I just didn’t have my  heart in it. I think, one day, I can make it work.  But not right now. So, then I thought, “Why not write the story that’s been brewing in my head for ages?”  Well, I’ll tell you why not.Read More →

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I’ve had some distracting circumstances recently that forced me to pretty much put aside writing for a while until I could own my time again.  My time still isn’t completely free and clear, but there is a little more of it. The problem, though, is how do you pick up that piece you once had so much passion for?  What magic formula brings it alive again? I have two works in progress; one is still very much alive, but the other I laid aside because it just..wasn’t…working.  That’s the one I want to discuss today. My first approach is to try something new.  I meanRead More →

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I’ve really been struggling lately with process.  I’ve come to a dead end and, it occurred to me, it’s not the story.  It’s how I’m getting the story out.  I always considered myself a planner (vs. a pantser) but it occurred to me when I was actually writing five page descriptions of my heroine’s apartment that maybe I was doing too much planning. But writing the beginning of a story is easy. Or it is for me.  There’s so much to get out, so much you know is going to happen, it’s like you channel the story.  And then you hit that wall, where youRead More →

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So I’m a third to a half of the way through my manuscript and oh. my. God. I knew the beginning.  I had so much to write, to get all these threads and storylines moving.  I had to write and then condense and rewrite just to make sure I could get in everything important without rambling.  And then I get to this point and I’ve got nothing.  What comes next?  I sort of know the ending, though not the specifics, so where do I go from here?  Some ideas. A preset time (say, 30 minutes) of freewriting, preferably with a program that pushes you toRead More →

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Writing is entirely too hard to not take seriously.  Like the decision to go on living, the decision to decide between life and quality of life, writing is a choice.  It’s not something we’re called to (though it may call to us, like the siren); it’s not something you do halfway, because maybe you can make it.  You commit to it, the way you commit to a career, to a marriage, to having children.  Because once it gets into your blood, there’s no quitting. Is writing fun?  All too rarely.  It can be thrilling, heartachingly frustrating, gut check time, and some of the highest elationRead More →

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Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depth of your heart; confess to yourself you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. ~Rainer Maria Rilke via Quotegarden.com (which  no longer seems to exist). Writing makes me crazy. There are days that I can’t stop writing, even if I wanted to, and the story just keeps coming.  (I call this writer crack–no better feeling).  On other days, I stare in desperation at the screen or my notes and will something, anything to come.  And if I get a hundred words down,Read More →

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New Year’s Day: Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual. ~Mark Twain via Quotegarden.com (which no longer seems to exist). Which, I suppose, one may be.  But I prefer to stay positive.  I’m not failing–I just still have things to learn. In that vein, what do I want to learn this year? To write, in some fashion every day.  I mean every day, whether I feel like it or I’m tired or I’ve got kids running around.  Every day.  I have learned that I write best when I keepRead More →

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You need to stand out, and that means swallowing your fear (and your pride) and showing all of you, even the hidden parts. via The Babbling Flow of a Fledgling Scribbler: On Fear and Baring Your Soul.Read More →

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At some point, when one realizes one wants to be a writer–a real, true, working writer–it then becomes apparent that one must write.  Even when inspiration has flipped you off and it’s the last thing you want to do.  What do I do?  I make a go of it with pen and paper.  I write very informally, almost as if I’m talking to myself. (“So, this is the part where character 1 finds out what character 2 has really been up to.  She’s pissed and more than a little hurt…”–that sort of thing.) But I really, really want to know: how do you do it? Read More →