Andrew M. Friday

Category: discovery draft

  • Writing With Scene Beats

    Writing With Scene Beats

    If plot is the skeleton and character, is the heart. Beats are the nervous system. They carry every signal, every reaction, every emotional pulse through your story. Master beats—and suddenly everything else gets sharper.

  • Writing Life Update: January 2026

    Writing Life Update: January 2026

    I’m almost done with my current draft of Normous, the next episode of my Consortium series.

  • Writing Advice from Roshani Chokshi

    Writing Advice from Roshani Chokshi

    At first, I didn’t realize the newly released fantasy novel, The Swan’s Daughter, had been written by someone I’ve read before: Roshani Chokshi.

  • Voices Without Faces: A Dialogue-Only Writing Experiment

    Voices Without Faces: A Dialogue-Only Writing Experiment

    I just finished Brandon Sanderson‘s Tailored Realities. It was not what I thought it would be. Yes, I knew it was a collection of short stories, but with surprise me is the inspiration I found through his writing craft observations. My review of Tailored Realities by Brandon Sanderson These nuggets of writing wisdom are found…

  • A Small Course Correction

    A Small Course Correction

    I’ve been doing some thinking about this blog lately, and I’ve come to a realization that probably won’t surprise longtime readers: this space has been trying to be too many things at once.

  • Friday’s Findings: Create a Scene Palette

    Friday’s Findings: Create a Scene Palette

    Most writers want their scenes to flow effortlessly on the page, but few scenes actually begin that way. Before the smooth prose and clean structure comes something messier, more playful, and far more effective: scene brainstorming.

  • Writing First Efforts

    Writing First Efforts

    “Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere.” — Anne Lamott Photo by SIPI SIPI

  • What Does NaNoWriMo Look Like Now?

    What Does NaNoWriMo Look Like Now?

    Never fear, the spirit of NaNoWriMo lives on, even if the website is gone. The challenge is to now find your own community to write with, whether that is online or in-person. And of course, you can write by yourself. Whatever your goals have been for the November challenge of writing 50k words, you have…

  • Is It Preptober?

    Is It Preptober?

    Next month will be the first November in decades that the official NaNoWriMo website will not exist. Does this mean no National Novel Writing Month? Will there be a NaNoWriMo community? Should I do NaNoWriMo? I can only speak for myself, but I plan to do NaNoWriMo. Which means this is Preptober. Preptober: It’s a…