Most writing advice for adults includes setting a routine that blocks out time for writing. If your brain knows that on Wednesdays at 10 am after you’ve taken the kids to school and the dog for a walk and gotten your second cup of coffee, it’s time to write, then you can pretty reliably expectContinue reading “Sneaking In Time To Write”
Tag Archives: novel writing
Punctuation and Visual Rhythm
Recently I was proofreading a novel draft of mine, and I came across this sentence: Anne advanced; he retreated; she cornered him against a wall and pounded his shoulders. Now, I love me some semicolons, so it’s no surprise that I would somehow manage to get two into a single sentence in the first fiveContinue reading “Punctuation and Visual Rhythm”
Writing Is Social
We all know the stereotypes of the writer: the introvert with cats hiding away with coffee and alcohol, scribbling away in a notebook (ok, minus the coffee and wine, it’s true for me). “Writing is a lonely profession,” people say. We see it as a soloistic endeavor: the grand aloof maestro spinning mesmerizing tales outContinue reading “Writing Is Social”
Finishing A Dead Draft
Anne Lamott famously gave us the concept of “shitty first drafts” as the key to “good second drafts and terrific third drafts,” and even that seems overly optimistic for many writers—my process for long fiction takes at least four drafts. But if we are being generous with ourselves, as Anne Lamott argues, we embrace theContinue reading “Finishing A Dead Draft”
NaNoWriMo 2020 Update #2
Today is 20k day. As of writing this, I’m at 20,945 words. I haven’t written for today yet. So it’s safe to say I’m doing all right this year. Today I want to talk about accountability in writing. Accountability is, in fact, part of the magic of NaNoWriMo. Part of the reason that more wordsContinue reading “NaNoWriMo 2020 Update #2”
NaNoWriMo 2020 Update #1
Novel word count at time of publication: 8,588. As you are probably aware, it’s November. That means, among other things, that it’s time for NaNoWriMo. It’s a familiar rhythm at this point, and I love it. And it’s the rhythm of NaNoWriMo I want to talk about today. Honestly, it’s the only thing that feelsContinue reading “NaNoWriMo 2020 Update #1”
How To Decide To Cut A Scene: A Heuristic for Writers
Almost every fiction writer has heard “kill your darlings” and “show don’t tell.” These pithy sayings get repeated so much that they lose a lot of meaning and they’re frankly a little annoying, because they don’t really help writers know when to kill darlings, or which darlings to kill, or what to show and notContinue reading “How To Decide To Cut A Scene: A Heuristic for Writers”
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