If you’ve been following along, you know that I have a theme I’m happy with (generation power shifts), and a genre to put it in. Next up: characters. I’ll let the theme guide me, so I’m going to need some generations if I want to show the power struggle between the outgoing and incoming powers.…
My scenes feel so flat! I say that all the time… usually after I’ve been staring at one for too long. The pristine Idea that it began with is now sullied by my keyboard. It’s no good. It’s flat. Is it not fun to write? Take a look at that scene again. What’s the worst…
There’s an idea out there that, to be a real writer, you have to publish X books in Y time. Putting a book out in a month does not mean we are now Real Authors… it just means we spent a month on it. Nothing more. Maybe I’m lucky and I manage to do that.…
At some point I always hit a block. The story doesn’t want to flow like it should, and I’m fighting plot holes, and all I want it to be anymore is done. I just want it out there so that The Dream can be real at last. No, it’s not done yet. I am. Time…
I’m not a very… trusting person. If I see that someone is trying to sell a program or a course, warning bells immediately go off in my head. When they promise easy answers, I don’t even bother looking at the price. I already know it’s a scam. So do I think that they are all…
So with my topic set, now I look to genre. Why wouldn’t I start with genre though? Isn’t it kind of important? Well, let me ask you: what comes to mind when I say “romance book”? A story about how person X met person Y and they faced challenge Z on the path to finding…
Every day, so many of us start our novels… or, in my case, restart them. A tiny, tiny percentage of aspiring authors will actually publish. Why is that? Is it because we don’t know how to make for words go on paper good? Of course not. Maybe it’s because we can’t plan our way out…
Yay! So it’s time to write that book! But … about what? Before we even start thinking about setting or characters, or even genre, let’s take a step back and think about what we actually want to talk about for the next few hundred pages. It’s got to be something we care about to keep…
To hold back on the urge to jump into the pants pool, or to live-test plotting problems, I will let my characters write me letters. There is always a quiet corner of a scene, even a finale, where a character could observe from. They can tell me what they see, how they feel, and often…
I shall not deadline. This sounds dangerous. I mean, I specifically wanted to not fall into a plotting hole for so long that I had to change my address. So, what gives? Well, I also know that when said deadline comes around, I will convince myself that I have actually met it and I Am…