In order to get in the habit of writing again, seeing as I’ve been editing and rewriting for such a long time without really writing much of anything new, I’m going to try doing prompts more, and practice showing and telling, something I’d like to work on. Specifically, I’d like to get better at distinguishing […]
A Writer’s Journey – Improving the Craft
Good morning, blog. It’s been a while. As you may have noticed, I haven’t posted here in… a while. I’m still here, still writing, but I really lost touch with my blog as I intensified my focus and my efforts on my fiction writing and the revision of my work-in-progress. It has been a long […]
Breaking up with self-imposed obligations
You may have noticed, or maybe not, that I haven’t been posting here lately. I wasn’t on vacation or ill or doing anything glamorous or interesting. I was just taking a break. Last time I posted here, I was very busy reading, but I wasn’t doing much writing at the time. I’m sort of in […]
You know how sometimes you try to fix something and wind up breaking something else?
I wanted to do some more microfiction today, but I couldn’t come up with anything I thought was worth sharing. Maybe next time. In the meantime, I’ve made some progress with my other projects, though not as much as I’d been hoping. Editing I finished rereading the latest draft, but as I neared the end, […]
Ready for Round Two: Reading AND Editing
The good news is: I finished the second draft of my edit-in-progress! After the spectacular fail by the hometeam on Sunday, I went back to my room and finished the last chapter. I am still planning on reading the new draft through before I send it out to any readers for feedback to make sure […]
Big Plans for 2014: Editing, Nano-ing, and Beyond!
I have a few ideas about what I want to do on the blog here in the coming year, but first, let me get round to what I have been doing lately: Procrastination/fun stuff NaNoWriMo is over, and I did finally finish my story, but I had one last little update to do, and that’s […]
It’s December Already!? Post NaNoWriMo Wrap-up
Last month kinda flew by! One minute, I was struggling to hit 30k words, the next I had hit 50k and was marching onward toward 70! That’s right, final word count as of November 30th: 71,207 BUT: the story isn’t done yet! I worked on it a little on Sunday morning and broke 72k, but […]
How One Builds Story Structure: Important, It Is!
I use Grammarly’s grammar checker online because Yoda-speak is only for centuries-old Jedi Masters. I’ve been thinking a lot about structure since I started my edit-in-progress. For one thing, the chapter order has been weighing heavily on my mind. Normally, chronology would be my concern when it comes to ordering pieces of a story, but […]
Philosophy of Editing: Thinking it Through
I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it, but I studied philosophy in college, not English or creative writing. Many writers who know already know they want to be writers while they’re in college tend to go for writing-based majors like literature, creative writing, journalism, or whatever you get with an English major. However, philosophy is […]
Get Out of Your Head: It’s Nice Out Here
I can sum up why beta readers are awesome in less than ten words: they pull you back into the real world. Sometimes when you’re writing, you get way too caught up in your own imagination and your own plans to pay attention to the details. This is actually a good thing – it means […]