Category: motivation

  • Friday’s Findings: July 2022 Camp NaNoWriMo Update #1

    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…

  • Not Getting Anything Done on Your Novel?

    Not Getting Anything Done on Your Novel?

    Photo by Brett Jordan

  • Friday’s Findings: Doing a Scene Audit

    Friday’s Findings: Doing a Scene Audit

    I’ve been on vacation this week and while I haven’t gotten as much reading done as I would have liked, I have gotten a LOT done on my novella, Traption. I’ve spent this week going through each scene, one by one and asking myself the following questions: Does this scene have a goal?What are the…

  • Writers: Let’s Take Action

    Writers: Let’s Take Action

    How can you reveal truths through your storytelling? How can you say what needs to be said through your fiction? How can recent events in the news be reflected in your writing?

  • Do I Really Need to “Practice” Writing?

    Do I Really Need to “Practice” Writing?

    If I could talk with my younger self — who wanted to be a writer — I would tell him to practice writing. My younger self would not have known what that would entail. So, I would say to him the following . . . But first, let’s talk about why writing practice is essential. What does a budding…

  • Friday’s Findings: Hands Off Read Through

    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…

  • Camp NaNoWriMo Update #5

    Camp NaNoWriMo Update #5

    Camp NaNoWriMo for April 2022 is over. Did I reach my goals? Yes and no. No, I did not reach my word goal of 15,000 words. I got to 11,600 words. And I’m happy with that. I had a blast discovering more about my story (a better goal than word count). I learned more about…

  • Friday’s Findings: How Exactly Do the Atomic Habits Help Writers?

    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…

  • Is “Atomic Habits” Helpful for Writers?

    Is “Atomic Habits” Helpful for Writers?

    I’ll just go ahead and say it.: Without a doubt, the book Atomic Habits by James Clear can help writers establish more effective writing production. It sounds like I’m hyping the book–I am–but I’ll be the first to say the concepts explored in Atomic Habits won’t work for anyone who is leery of products that…