We all have our areas of expertise. An avid golfer will notice when another golfer pulled his head or some such on a swing, and will be able to accurately predict that ball will shank left or right as a result. An Army Captain will shake his or her head whilst watching the latest military flick and comment about how the uniforms are all wrong. An equestrian will grimace watching some actors and actresses ride horses, seeing that their posture and balance are terrible. A film student will be ... View Post
How To Get More Story Ideas (otherwise known as: How To Tap Into the Elusive "Everywhere")
If you are like most yet-to-be-published writers, you attempt to learn all you can from the successful career authors any chance you get. This often includes reading magazine articles, interviews, and online articles about them, and sometimes even traveling to who-knows-where to meet them live and in-person at some sort of writer's conference or author signing. If you have done any of the above, you know very well and good that one of the absolute most common (and most utterly annoying) ... View Post
How Noveling is Much Like Running Marathons (or at least Half-Marathons… but probably more like Full-Marathons)
You know those people who go on and on about fitness and think running forever is awesome and they can't get enough of it and they tell you all about how running forever is like thebestthingever and you just gotta try it cuz if you try it you'll just love it and never wanna stop??? Yeah, that's not what this post is. So you can relax. Hehe. As some of you may know, I participated in (against my better judgment) the Disney Princess Half-Marathon on February 23rd, 2014. I was talked into this ... View Post
How Writing a Novel's Rough Draft is Like Taking a Really Long Road Trip…
Through No-Man's Land. In a foreign country. At night. With one headlight. And a dodgy map.... It goes something like this. Okay. I'm starting to get the hang of this now. I'm starting to know what to expect. I'm starting to figure out how to ride this bull. No wait, let's just stick with the road trip analogy. Less confusing that way. So. I've got a map of where I'm going and where I eventually need to be - that would be your vague outline, the one I suggested you create during ... View Post
Trial By Fire: Lessons and Habits Finally Realized and Learned in NaNoWriMo Year 2
And I thought I'd learned a lot from my first year of participation in NaNoWriMo. Pah. I confess that my transition, I feel, was a bit rockier than most in the beginning last year, likely because up until that point I had spent the previous nine years writing only fanfiction, which is a completely different beast than original fiction (and NOT just for the obvious reasons, but that's a whole different post...). It took me awhile to settle into the original fiction brain last year. But this ... View Post
NaNoWriMo BOOT CAMP! Lesson Two: CHARACTERS AND GMCs!
NO, I do NOT mean a GMC car!!! You don't know what else I could possibly mean by GMC?!??! You think your characters are just bodies to occupy your awesomely fantastic setting or move through your utterly original and mind-blowing plot!???!? WRONG!!!!! WRONG WRONG WRONG!!! Failing on the CHARACTER LEVEL will make your entire book FAIL!! THAT'S RIGHT! I don't care how awesome your setting is or how mind-blowing your plot!!!! Without fully realized and FLAWED characters, your book will go ... View Post
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