Where Normal Need Not Apply
Several months ago, I ran a post about what to look for in a critique partner. One of the points I’d made was to evaluate whether a potential critique partner was familiar with our genre. Only someone knowledgeable about our genre would know the expectations for pacing, character development, etc. […]
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I get a brief reprieve from the deadline cave this week while I wait for feedback from my awesome readers. When I first sent my work out to them, I felt great. This work was as good as I could make it. But going back to last week’s perfection posts […]
Yes, I’m still under deadline, but an interesting issue came up in the comments on my last post about perfectionism. Perfectionists tend to be nitpicky, no surprise there. But there’s a time when that trait is very helpful, and a time when we need to ignore the compulsion to tweak. […]
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Yes, I’m still in the deadline cave this week, but I see the light at the end of the tunnel. Yay! While I’m hiding, I wanted to share this post I originally wrote last summer. The lesson is even more relevant to me right now. (That’s a look at one […]
I’m still in the deadline cave and self-banned from Twitter, but I wanted to post about something I’ve realized through this revision process. It’s probably safe to say we all want to get better at our jobs, whether that’s writing or something else. But how much of what we do […]
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I’m in a deadline cave this week, so I have just a short post inspired by my current crazy schedule. I’m so grateful to my awesome critique partners and beta readers. They’re trying to keep me sane. Or at least, they’re trying to keep me from going completely insane. But […]
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Depending on who you talk to, head-hopping is somewhere between a shoulder shrug and the-world-is-ending bad. Note that neither of those extremes thinks that head-hopping is good. I suppose it could be positive if used in some sci-fi story, along the lines of “body snatchers,” but we’re talking about it […]
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If we don’t want to waste time writing a story that will never get anywhere, we have to make sure we’ll be able to complete it. And guess what? It’s not completed when we, as writers, think it is. Going from seed idea to completion happens over two stages. So […]
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Every story begins with an idea. Sometimes this idea comes to authors out of the blue. Sometimes a dream provides the spark. Sometimes “people watching” or an overheard conversation will trigger the thought. But no matter where it comes from, the idea kicks off everything else, like a seed from which […]
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Yesterday, the inimitable Tawna Fenske had a blog post about how reading outside our comfort zone can make us better writers. Her post got me thinking about a book I recently finished, Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins. Unlike my usual genres of paranormal or historical, Anna and […]
