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What I’m doing to get ready for NaNoWriMo
Tell me if I’m wrong, but getting ready for National Novel Writing Month can include anything except the actual writing itself. I admit that I am itching to get started, so in the meantime, I am doing the following before November 1st: Creating characters: I have an Excel spreadsheet with columns for their names, goals,…
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The murdering of perfectionism in planning your novel
Are you the kind of writer who just starts writing and sees where it goes? Or, are you the kind of writer who plans every detail in an outline before writing the first draft? I use to fall into the latter category. I didn’t want to tumble into the trap where the more spontaneous writers…
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Not “I will” but “I am”
I just received an email from Jon Acuff containing a schedule for the Quitter Conference in September and I’m excited to see that Jeff Goins is one of the speakers. A few months ago I read a book by Goins called You Are a Writer, So Start Acting Like One. In a section of this…
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My point of view on point-of-view
When I wrote the first draft of my novel, I used the third person point-of-view (POV). I felt the story would be less convoluted if I retold it in the first person POV. Now, over a hundred and fifty pages into my second draft, I realize I miss telling my story from in third person.…
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The Furious Five Hundred
It’s a busy week for me for several reasons, one of which my house is being remodeled and every room is in disarray. I have no place to sit in my own home. Despite that, I’ve been camping out at the coffee shop for the past few days and I’m getting work done. I’m using…
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How I build my vocabulary
If you’re interested in building your vocabulary, feel free to apply some or all of the technique I use: Go to Dictionary.com and sign up to receive the word of the day by email. Go to Flashcard Machine and create an account. You can, however, use any online flashcard website. When you receive an email…
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A point of view on first person point of view
Well into a draft of my novel I realized I suffered from info-dump-itis. I know better than to do this, but I had such a great world I had created and felt the need to cram it down the reader’s throat. Every scene told the story from a different character’s viewpoint in third person. As…
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Who has time to write a blog? No one.
I’m at the coffee shop eating my oatmeal with walnuts, brown sugar and raisins. I’m thinking, “I want to write that blog entry on why I switched to writing my novel in first person.” But first I have a class I start teaching tonight and I haven’t outlined the syllabus. I need to mulch the…
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I survived bootcamp
I feel like I’ve grown the most as a fiction writer due to some spontaneous decisions I’ve made. One of these was doing National Novel Writing Month on the first day it started. I made a split decision on November 1st to write a 50,000 first draft of a novel by November 30th. And I…
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