It was one of the nights that I spend with other parents who have also accompanied their children to ballet classes. Sometimes there’s conversation, sometimes we’ve brought something to work on, sometimes both. For me, it’s always both – I try never to ignore a nice chunk of writing time. A new gentleman struck up […]
Zipping merrily along through my revision outline; making great progress. In the zone, every thought had a home. And then…I rounded a blind curve and had to skid to a brain locking stop. Hit an obstacle. Makes me crazy when that happens. Actually, the obstacle was an event. I had shown it from the heroine’s […]
Yes – I know it’s customary to count down to the new year, and no – I’m not counting the wrong way. I’m saying goodbye to 2010, – or as I’ve come to think of it – my year zero; and saying hello to my year one. It will be my ferst furst first full year […]
I’m tackling a thorough revision of my debut novel, and have been developing the revision outline since mid-November. It’s a scene-by-scene revision of a 400 page manuscript – and it’s my first. So naturally, completing the outline is taking longer than I planned. ROW80 is the perfect challenge to keep me mindful of the finish line. So […]
During revision, silkscreening is one thing; constructing a scene is quite another. The complexity of my current WIP makes the process more an intricate choreography than a construction. We know that the basis of scene choreography is the Holy Quarternary of writing – goal, obstacle, action and resolution. In my particular case, many scenes in the story also […]
Something challenged me last Friday. Well, that’s probably an understatement. It actually brought out the worst in me. I’m pressuring myself to meet a self-imposed deadline. I flew into a snit and ultimately stomped away from my desk, banging the door shut behind me. Making matters worse, I’d forgotten that L was at school, and […]
Someone asked me – earnestly, sincerely – for my thoughts on writing a book. My first reaction was – who me? I’ve not yet commercially published my first novel. What thoughts am I qualified to share? If someone were to ask for my thoughts on software development, I could expound at length. How to immerse […]
I’m revising a WIP with complex story lines. Even so, my fear was that by now, my focus would be drawn away from the process. I expected that I would frantically be going after anything that looked like it could be a short project; something for easing the monotony of the revision process. Yes, I know it’s […]
This post was supposed to be a rant about too many files, because I was frustrated by having to search through so many when I needed to edit an artifact for my ‘work in progress’ (WIP). Added to that was the pressure of knowing how important it is to have a story outline, and having that knowledge reinforced […]
I’m very excited. I’ve figured out how to make the sometimes revered, sometimes scorned, always discussed writer’s tool work for me. You know the one – the outline. I’d only begun using it because my editor advised that it was the next step for revising the story he’d critiqued. Now I’m outlining because it is […]
