Category: my life
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Friday’s Findings: Ways to Start a Writing Session
In my last blog posting, I talked about using copy work to get started for a writing session. The concept goes like this: for five minutes, copy word-for-word, a few paragraphs of your favorite author or novel. Then start your actual work-in-progress (WIP). It made me realize copy work is just one way to warm…
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Friday’s Findings: Starting a Writing Session
Use This Simple Technique to Get in the Mood for Your Writing Session A few years ago, I wrote about different ways to practice writing exercises. These exercises are designed to help improve my narrative style and writing craft, and they’re distinct from actually writing the story or scene I’m currently working on. Instead, these…
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Friday’s Findings: Audio Annotations
“The point of being a god is to have the joint running to your specifications.” -Guy Vesten, The Hungry Gods by Adrian Tchaikovsky This is just one of several quotes I got from the novella I listened to today, Tchaikovsky’s The Hungry Gods (THG). It wasn’t very long – only five hours – and I…
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Friday’s Findings: Using Scrivener’s Snapshot Function to Revise
There are a million ways to revise. And there are a million ways to use Scrivener. For my fiction writing, Scrivener offers flexibility and customization. I have found it malleable to fit whatever writing project I am working on at the time. If you haven’t used it, you would too, I bet. No, I’m not…
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Friday’s Findings: The 555 Experiment
When I did my own NaNoWriMo last month, I realized something: writing 1,666 words a day isn’t sustainable for me. I work a full-time job, and I’m not as fortunate as someone with a flexible schedule or who doesn’t have to work full-time. For people in those situations who wish to write, I truly wish…
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Should You Bundle Your Books?
For the past few months, I had been playing with the idea of bundling the books in my Consortium series I’ve written so far. I had already bought a pre-made cover from bookcoverzone.com, so I thought ‘what the heck.’ It’s gone more smoothly than I thought possible. One thing I’ve done is put the book…
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My 50k Novel in 30 Days: Final Daze
During my last three days of doing this unofficial NaNoWriMo, I wondered about my writing craft process for the future… Day 28 It is a sad day for me. The website for NaNoWriMo has vanished. Ironic it happened while I’m in the last week of one of the best 50k words in 30 days I’ve ever done.…
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Friday’s Findings: My 50K Novel Week 1
I’ve decided to prove that I can write fifty thousand words in thirty days on my own — without anyone or any organization giving me a deadline. Here are the parameters I set for myself: Here is how my first week went: Day 1: It’s a Thursday and in the middle of the work week.…
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Friday’s Findings: My First 50K Novel
On Friday, October 31, 2008, I woke up to the radio talking about something called National Novel Writing Month. Write fifty thousand words by the end of November? Impossible! But I wanted to try it because I’m crazy. So, after work that Friday, I checked out the NaNoWriMo website. I spent my time making a…
Andrew M. Friday 