-
-
Join 509 other subscribers
-
Recent Posts
Other Blogs Of Interest
- Author Elizabeth Bear — Hugo winner and all-around cool person
- Geek Of All Trades — A “Geek’s Eye” view of life and all things geek. Home of the “Word of the Day.”
- idisagreecompletely — Susan Lewis, blogger, writer, and fellow NaNoWriMo’er
- Interactions in Real Time –Jo Rhett, author and member of my extended critique group family, discussing writing and technology.
- Marmalade, Cat Detctive — Follow Marmalade, star of an upcoming story by my friend Maaja Wentz
- Ninth Circle Press — Snarky T-shirts, buttons, mugs / musings on creativity and humor / flash fiction / snowclones.
- Second Hand Roses — The worst–and sometimes, the best–of thrift store and yard sale finds.
Tag Archives: craft
Writing Thursday: NaNoWriMo, Week 3
This week, I feel obliged to start off with a link to a list the Denver NaNoWriMo group shared on Facebook: Ten Signs Someone You Know Is Doing National Novel Writing Month. I have to admit doing at least some … Continue reading
Writing Thursday: Advice to Aspiring/Perspiring Writers #2: Writers Write
Okay, since I sort of started down this path last week, when I talked about the fact that first drafts suck, I got to thinking about some other advice I’d give to someone who wants to write fiction. And I … Continue reading
Writing Thursday: Contest Results and Writing Advice
Hi, everyone! Yeah, I know. I haven’t blogged about writing in a while. Frankly, while I’ve still been writing, I haven’t had a lot going on that I considered blog-worthy. This week, that changed. A couple of months ago, I … Continue reading
Writing Thursday: Descriptions; or, A Sense Of Place
A beta reader of my WIP, The Daughters of August Winterbourne (Book 1) pointed out to me that my description of my main character Celia Winterbourne’s arrival in Oxford was…a little thin. Well, let’s see: Their carriage wended its way … Continue reading
Writing Thursday: Entitlement; or, What To Name The Baby (Chapters)
At the end of my latest round of editing on my WIP, The Daughters of August Winterbourne (Book 1), I came to an inevitable conclusion: The story is set in the Victorian era, so in order to give it a … Continue reading
Writing Thursday: Show Me; or, Making The Words Count
So as I mentioned last week, I had a dilemma with one of my scenes. It was telling, not showing. But at the same time, I was also trying to reduce my overall word count for this story. After looking … Continue reading
Writing Thursday: Showing, Not Telling; or, How Many Times Do I Have To Tell You?
I know this one. Really, I do. Show. Don’t tell. But when I’m trying to keep my word count down, sometimes it’s more economical to tell. Because showing involves using lots of words, you know. That “thousand words to paint … Continue reading
Writing Thursday: Brief Updates; or News From The Trenches
In a bit of a rush today, so I’m going to keep things brief. But this week’s exciting news is that I’m about halfway through my current desperate hunt for extraneous words in my WIP, The Daughters of August Winterbourne … Continue reading
Writing Thursday: Why Not Take All Of Me; or, Reducing Wordiness
For the past few weeks, I’ve been a woman on a mission. I’ve been trying to reduce my work-in-progress, The Daughters Of August Winterbourne (Book I) down to 125,000 words. The first draft weighed in at around 185,000 words; the … Continue reading
Posted in Writing
Tagged craft, editing and revising, finishing what I started, goals, process
Leave a comment
Writing Thursday: A Matter Of Some Delicacy; or, Getting Intimate With Your Characters
First off, my apologies for not getting this posted last night. For some reason, my netbook just didn’t want to talk to the network last night. It gets that way sometimes. This is an entry I’ve been saving up since … Continue reading
Writing Thursday: Learning and Unlearning; or, Old Habits Do What?
I’ve been deep into editing the first book of my Winterbourne series these past few weeks (as I–ahem–may have mentioned once or twice). But the other day, when I went to open my file, my mouse pointer slipped, and instead, … Continue reading
The Good vs. The Bad; or, Why Didn’t I Have A Creative Writing Teacher Like This?
Today, author James Van Pelt* posted a blog entry on good poetry vs. bad poetry over on his LiveJournal. You should go read it. In particular, his list of characteristics of good vs. bad poetry (in the photograph of the … Continue reading
And Now The Ball Is Rolling; or, More NaNoWriMo Progress
I just realized, going back and looking at my NaNoWriMo update from last week, that I really didn’t provide much of an update at all. So I should probably remedy that! As of this morning, I was a few hundred … Continue reading
Plot Decisions; or Weighing The Possibilities
(Post-A-Day Challenge, Day 26) I just finished running the last few chapters of the first book of “The Daughters of August Winterbourne”* series past my critique group. As part of the critique, two members of the group questioned one of … Continue reading
Too Much “Was”; or, One Easy Way To Add More Life To Your Writing
(Post-A-Day Challenge, Day 24) In my on-line critique group, this was my week to receive a critique. As always, my group provided helpful feedback, catching all (or at least, many) of the things I missed. One person pointed out to … Continue reading
And Then What? or, Pacing
(Post-A-Day Challenge, Day 16) (Gah! Somehow this got saved as a draft last night instead of getting posted. It should count anyway, right?) Found myself indisposed with an unhappy tummy today, so I took the opportunity to read through one … Continue reading
Prose To Poetry And Back Again; or, All The Other Cool Kids Were Doing It….
(Post-A-Day Challenge, Day 13) Okay, so…. After seeing this on a couple of other writers’ blogs, I decided to try it myself. The idea is to take your prose and break it into lines and stanzas like a free-verse poem. … Continue reading
The Mystery Of The Amazing Disappearing Characters; or, She Was Here Just A Second Ago!
(Day 10 of Post-A-Day Challenge) Anyone ever had a character (or several characters) disappear on them? I have. All the time. The sad part is, most of the time I don’t even notice it until later. I set up … Continue reading
Details, Details; or, Adding The Highlights
(Post-A-Day Challenge, Day 8) One of the things I am trying to do on my current edit pass on Book 1 of the Winterbourne series is to add in some of the little details that will help bring the story … Continue reading
The Big Picture; or, Pondering the Story Arc
(Day 5 of Post-A-Day Challenge) Okay, since one of the purposes of participating in the Post-A-Day Challenge is to get me ready for NaNoWriMo, I should probably talk about that at some point, shouldn’t I? So if you’re new around … Continue reading
CrazyWithKeyboard 