You know how you work so hard to get that first draft down on the page? How you sacrifice comfort, companionship and casual entertainment, family time, work time, leisure time, exercise, sleep, nutrition, freedom from toxins, sobriety, eventually your very sanity—all for the sake of that novel? Then you suffer… Read more“5 Things A Writer Always Overlooks”
Tag: editing
21 Things You Writers Know that Non-Writers Don’t
What it’s like to be transported to a parallel universe of incandescent vision through your own small words. How it feels to unravel the mystery of all human endeavor into a web of light that pulses delicately in your hands. Everything about your main characters’ childhoods, which were so poignant… Read more“21 Things You Writers Know that Non-Writers Don’t”
4 Do’s & 4 Don’t’s for Writing Series Fiction
This one comes from Lyn South, who submitted her question to Victoria’s Advice Column, which I like to think of as Miss Lonelyhearts for the Word-Worn. DO Identify your protagonist(s) and their nemesis(es) clearly right up front in each book. Your reader wants to know who this series is about…. Read more“4 Do’s & 4 Don’t’s for Writing Series Fiction”
5 Things to Celebrate About Finishing Your First Draft
You didn’t know you had that many words in you. And no, they’re not all just variations on “and then.” They’re all possible variations on twenty-six simple little letters, higgledy-piggledy arrangements of sound and thought and meaning, and the images that leap out of them are a magic of physical… Read more“5 Things to Celebrate About Finishing Your First Draft”
Being interviewed
Hey, folks, I’ve been interviewed on Bob Spear’s Book Trends Blog! Bob’s a bookstore owner who ventured into self-publishing many years ago, way back before it was fashionable. He made a success of his early nonfiction and is now back—blogging about the experience of self-publishing his series of mysteries, beginning… Read more“Being interviewed”
Editing in Word with Track Changes
Please see the Free Edits of Novel Hooks and Climaxes for examples of Copy & Line Editing.
5 BS Indicators for Writers Conferences
‘Tis the season for writers conferences. And last week I told you a story about something that happened at a conference once. Now this week and next I’m going to re-run these two posts I wrote a couple of years ago about writers conferences for all of you out there… Read more“5 BS Indicators for Writers Conferences”
6 Steps to Spattering Writing Like Glue All Over Yourself
Here’s my story for you guys for this week. Because I’m a storyteller: Start innocently Yesterday I was at the kitchen table while my husband baked a complicated type of Italian bread (in between bouts of gardening—the man’s a miracle to live with). I was doing our monthly household bookkeeping,… Read more“6 Steps to Spattering Writing Like Glue All Over Yourself”
7 Reasons to Be Grateful You’re a Writer
I wrote this one day a long time ago out of sheer, overwhelming gratitude for my craft. And you know what? I’m still grateful. You have all the tools you need They’re right there at your disposal: the world, your five senses, literacy, a brain. You will never need anything… Read more“7 Reasons to Be Grateful You’re a Writer”
3 More Things to Know About Exposition & Telling
We talked last week about an alarmingly bizarre piece of writing advice one of my clients got from an agent in response to her requested full manuscript. We also talked about exposition & telling and why they’re pretty much exactly the same thing, even though I know we out here… Read more“3 More Things to Know About Exposition & Telling”