Where Normal Need Not Apply
The end of this week marks the unofficial beginning to the holiday shopping season in the United States. Thursday is our Thanksgiving holiday, and the day after is known as Black Friday, the day retailers finally sell enough to put their accounting books “in the black” for the year. I’m […]
Pin It
My one-year blogiversary is coming up on July 12th. The occasion has me doing something I don’t normally do: math. Eek! This is my 101st blog post, and during that time, this blog has passed 100 Google Friend Connect followers, 250 RSS subscribers, and 1500 comments (not including mine). I […]
We’ve heard of rewriting, revising, and even re-imagining, but what does “re-envisioning” mean? I recently came across the word in a great post by Juliette Wade about how to redo a scene without rewriting. When a scene isn’t working, it’s tempting to blame the scene and get rid of it. […]
Pin It
We’ve learned that head-hopping should be avoided if we want to maintain a strong connection between the reader and the characters, and we’ve learned that just calling something omniscient doesn’t solve the head-hopping problem. This brings up the obvious question: How do we avoid head-hopping? The answer might be different […]
How were your holidays? Was Santa good to you? I got a Kindle and quality time with my family, so short of getting an agent and book contract, my Christmas couldn’t have been any better. As I mentioned last time, whether or not we’re disappointed often depends on what we’re […]
Pin It
Today is Thanksgiving in the U.S. The day we eat too much food, roll our eyes at the antics of our extended family, and think about all the things we’re grateful for. Or in my case, have epiphanies. So there I was, trying to think about my manuscript’s last-minute revisions […]
In my last post, I talked about the awesome and supportive writing community. Based on the comments, a lot of people agree. It’s great to have friends when you’re feeling up, down, or all alone. But what if you’re not sure how to join that community? Thanks to Laurie London, […]
Are you *gasp* less than perfect? Hey, it happens. I know I’m not the only one. No matter what aspect of our life we’re talking about, whether we’re in search of parenting advice, the secrets to magic tricks, or kicking our writing up a notch, we can read, experiment, and […]
Info dump? Infamous? You better believe it. The most egregious offender even has a name: the “As you know, Bob.” Imagine dialogue along the lines of, “As you know, Bob, Jane is our sister.” *cringe* Does anyone actually speak like that? Would you ever tell someone something they already know? […]
Pin It
We’ve all heard the saying: Life is a journey. Often this thought will be accompanied by—enjoy the ride—or something along those lines. And that’s great advice for life. But what about for stories? At the RWA conference, I attended the Inside Scoop workshop with Robin Perini and Claire Cavanaugh. During […]
