Category: Friday’s Findings
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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…
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Friday’s Findings: Fandom.com
I’ve been using Fandom.com (formerly known as Wikia.com) to help me in my reading and writing endeavors. Fandom is a wiki hosting service which hosts wikis on entertainment and pop culture, such as books, games, movies, television and more. I find Fandom helpful in my reading in several ways. First, if I’ve been reading a…
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Friday’s Findings: Doing Voice Journals
This week I’ve been doing voice journals for my characters as I reach the midpoint of Camp NaNoWriMo. I first read about this practice in James Scott Bell’s The Art of War for Writers. This week I’ve read a few online articles on the subject. I’ve capsulated the main concepts of doing voice journals for…
Andrew M. Friday 