Last week I challenged myself to buckle down and get some editing done. Of course fate promptly laughed in my face. First the good news. I did make some (small) amounts of progress towards my goal of having my current manuscript edited (for the second time) by April 12. First and foremost: I had a… Continue reading Progress Despite Being Sick
Have you ever had a book hangover? Picture this: you’re reading along, frantically flipping page after page, immersed in a story of someone else’s life and problems. You can’t wait to see what happens on the next page or in the next chapter. You read faster and faster, needing to know how it ends. How… Continue reading On Escapism
The advice to “write what you know” makes sense on surface. If you know a lot about something you’ll theoretically describe it and write about it with more authenticity and realism. On the other hand, the advice seems so limiting. What if you don’t “know” anything all that interesting? What if, like so many people,… Continue reading Write What You Know
I enjoy writing. I know there are many writers out there that say they “don’t enjoy writing, but they enjoy having written.” I’m not one of those writers. Brainstorming a new story idea and then turning that idea into words on paper are my favorite parts of the author life. I don’t like revising. Revising… Continue reading Doing What I Want vs. Doing What Must Be Done
I have been writing for a long time (fifteen years or so, I think…?). For the majority of that time, I’ve done it almost exclusively for myself, not allowing more than a select few people to read what I wrote, and even those few haven’t read all of my books. In the semi-recent past (about… Continue reading On Utter Exhaustion
For Christmas a few weeks ago, I received the book “Romancing the Beat” by Gwen Hayes*. The book was on my Amazon wish list, and I was happy to get it. Last weekend, I took the book out to read it, which took a surprisingly short amount of time. Like many craft or self-improvement books,… Continue reading Plotting for a Pantser
I’m a relative newcomer to submitting to writing contests. I entered one last fall, and received my feedback and results in December. Just last week, I submitted to my second, the Golden Heart competition. The Golden Heart is a competition put on by Romance Writers of America (RWA) for unpublished authors. It’s the last year… Continue reading Stepping Outside My Comfort Zone
I would love to be a full-time author. However, as with many (dare I say most?) other authors, I have a career that takes much of my time. That means that when I would love nothing more than to spend all day writing or really digging into editing or brainstorming, I usually have to say… Continue reading Writing With a Full-Time Career
A few months ago I entered my first writing contest, the results of which just came out. I wasn’t a finalist (which wasn’t a surprise since it was my first contest), but they did provide feedback and scores. The feedback was helpful, and mostly constructive, even if I didn’t agree with all of it. The… Continue reading Writing Contests
I haven’t yet met or heard of a single writer or artist that isn’t, at least occasionally, plagued by fear, doubt, and uncertainty. Creative endeavors are unlike logical pursuits like math. In math, you add 2 + 2, and if your answer isn’t 4, you know definitively that you’ve done something wrong. Writing, like most… Continue reading Fear, Doubt and Uncertainty
