Category: Friday’s Findings
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Friday’s Findings: July 2022 Camp NaNoWriMo Update #3
Since last November’s NaNoWriMo, I’ve been using what I call the scratchpad method for my writing process. Ever since, I’ve been honing and improving it for my way of writing. Each month, I start a new document and almost every day, I write whatever for that day. That could be a scene for two for…
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Friday’s Findings: July 2022 Camp NaNoWriMo Update #2
Word count: 17,000 I recently watched YouTuber Nick Sturgeon’s video Camp NaNoWriMo: Have Fun with Your Writing. One thing he said stuck out to me: “It’s okay. You had a bad day. Today things didn’t go according to plan. But that’s okay. This is just Camp Nanowrimo. It’s a practice. It’s a first attempt at…
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Friday’s Findings: July 2022 Camp NaNoWriMo Update #1
It’s Thursday evening and I’m going to wrap up my first week of Camp NaNoWriMo July 2022. Word count: 8482. This time, I’m working on three projects at once: 2 novels and a novella. I’m writing 333 words on all 3 each day. It’s simple. It’s fun. And I’m able to dabble a little bit…
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Friday’s Findings: Red and Black
When I recently reviewed the final draft of my novella, Traption, I used this trick to keep track of where I leave off when I am done for the day. I start with my whole manuscript in red. As I go through each paragraph, I turn it black when I’m done. This let’s me know…
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Friday’s Findings: A Little Off the Top
Currently, I am working on my novella, Traption. I practice taking a little off the top at the beginning of each scene. I learned this concept from Jessica Brody’s Writing Mastery Academy course on revision. She recommends going through each scene to determine whether or not the scene begins at the “correct” place. She recommends…
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Friday’s Findings: A Sci-fi Podcast Recommendation
I’ve discovered a new podcast and I love it because it reviews science fiction novels. It’s called Hugonauts: The Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time. Two guys named Brent and Cody discuss the things they like and didn’t like about well known sci-fi books from over the years. It’s fairly new, so there are enough…
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Friday’s Findings: Balancing Descriptions
Not too much, not too little. Not talking about the ranch seasoning powder I add to my tuna casserole recipe. I’m talking about description in fiction writing. I keep reading over and over: description isn’t about quantity, it’s about quality. Whether it’s describing a character, a room, or a car, one or two descriptors go…
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Friday’s Findings: Hands Off Read Through
This week I have been doing a “hands off read through” of my novella Traption. No reworking scenes, no editing paragraphs, no tweaking words; just reading through this draft I completed during Camp NaNoWriMo in April. Hands off the words. Some of the things I’m looking for: Does my story have a solid structure? Does…
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Friday’s Findings: How Exactly Do the Atomic Habits Help Writers?
In my previous post, I mentioned I found James Clear’s book Atomic Habits to be helpful for writers. I didn’t, however, mention specifically how I found it helpful. While I could probably list a dozen ways the book provided ways to incorporate the writing discipline into my life, I’m just going to list four for…
Andrew M. Friday 