After spending a few years playing around with the idea of writing fantasy (and then writing several fantasy manuscripts that I wound up shelving) I decided to go all in with contemporary YA. I knew by the first outline that I was a stronger writer in contemporary YA, I'm going to credit (blame?) my first … Continue reading Fantasy vs. Contemporary
As I am currently unrepresented by an agent and editor-less, I have to establish my own deadlines. Here's why this is a challenge: I started my career in news, which consisted of constant deadlines from like, 50 sources. By the time I left news for good a few years ago, I seriously had not ever … Continue reading Deadlines and Due Dates
I set the rather auspicious goal of completing a totally new manuscript over winter break, which was about two weeks. I didn't start from scratch- I had a solid outline I'd been tweaking off and on for a few months and a few thousand words. I figured if I had first mess of a draft … Continue reading Goals: Achieved and Set
After my writer's retreat in late spring, I pretty much stopped doing things. Well, creative things anyway. I stopped writing. Granted, I had just put that final polish on Hot Mess #1, now no longer a hot mess. Hot Mess #2 had its first read-through and has a rat's nest of a plot hole, and … Continue reading Writer’s Lincoln Log
My family is a big believer in routines, as most humans are. My mom used to start every morning on the couch drinking a cup of hot tea and watching The Weather Channel. This was complimentary to my morning routine, which involved rolling out of bed at the last possible moment, so I regularly shouted, … Continue reading A Writer’s Routine
The day I discovered that I could run and listen to audiobooks at the same time was life changing. I subscribed to Audible that day. It's a little shameful, actually. My library's free app, Hoopla, got me started on audiobooks and I don't know why I made the switch from complimentary to an app that … Continue reading Reading the Genre
April is Camp NaNoWriMo! I have set a goal for myself of 30 hours of time spent doing writing-related things. When I set the goal, I thought that would be 100% revision time. Now that it's April 3rd and I only have a handful of chapters left to edit, I'm beginning to realize it's not … Continue reading What to do with Camp NaNoWriMo
I used to write first thing in the morning. It was quite a delightful routine, truth be told. I'd wake up at 5, let the dog out, feed the cat, make myself a cup of tea, and then settle in to write for about an hour. Eventually the cat would join me and insist I … Continue reading Squeezing In the Revisions
“And what about those [writers' workshop] critiques, by the way? How valuable are they? Not very, in my experience, sorry. A lot of them are maddeningly vague. I love the feeling of Peter's story,someone may say. It had something... a sense of I don't know... there's a loving kind of you know... I can't exactly describe it.... … Continue reading When Are Workshops Helpful?
I've been struggling lately with my manuscript, Hot Mess #1. I made a bit of a breakthrough last night, but I didn't do anything in December and January has been a slow start. My laundry list of excuses includes: Several instances of snow, which somehow made it impossible to write. Illness, where I spent several … Continue reading Level 3 Writer, Level 34 Human
The Merry Manuscript 