Finishing and the writing diet
Stephen King was right. I was re-reading his book ‘On writing’ and he talked about getting the first draft of a novel done as quickly as possible and in one go because the longer it took, there would be loss of momentum, loss of attachment with your characters and their plight and everything would become […]
Tackling writer’s block
We can spend days, weeks, months, or years blocked as we get through our novels. Some of it could be due to not knowing. Not knowing how to write, not knowing how to craft a novel, not knowing what happens next… In a previous post I wrote about being stuck, the responses that came out […]
Tying up loose ends
I’m terrible. I keep changing things constantly as the story progresses in my novel and thinking ‘ooh, that’s a better idea now, I’ll use that’ and then I have to make note of the change and go back through chapters to introduce the idea or cut out the previous idea from scenes as I feed […]
The mind of a writer
Something popped into my mind the other day and I think I need to expand my idea of the mind of a writer because behind the skill of learning to be a writer I think that there are three aspects that get developed: our creative side, our ability to write and to edit the work. […]
Getting over the initial fear
Getting over the initial fear of putting pen to paper, placing my fingers onto the keyboard, opening up the last draft, checking my notes, starting the corrections, adjustments, editing my work, working on the millionth (it feels like it) revision of a chapter or a scene, some days feels like the hardest thing in the […]
The second draft edit
As we weave our way through the process of trying to get at least one novel published, many options are presented for editing that we try out to determine if they will work for us. I watched a video about editing and in it an author said that you will have to cut out half […]
First novel going nowhere? Write another one.
If your first novel is driving you demented, stop and write a second novel. Even the act of writing the first draft of a second novel can be liberating. It tells you that there is more than one story inside you and you have the capability to produce it. Now it doesn’t mean that you […]
The writing gets done
Despite all the problems associated with getting writers block on a regular basis, I do notice that the work eventually gets done. Why? Because I’m really starting to believe that I am a writer. That I can do this. Now, I know I’m not going to be a literary genius but I’ve got feedback on […]
Write. Learn. Repeat.
I was on the phone recently with a new writer who was stuck at 3,500 words of their novel and was hesitating to write further because they felt that they didn’t know if they could. It reminded me of how I used to be at seven years ago, at six years ago, and then I […]
Procrastination is a fickle thing!
So obviously I should have been writing posts for this blog but when you have a procrastinator writing a blog about procrastination, well, really what did you expect? I thought I didn’t have anything to write so the first week went by and I thought I don’t want to bog down anyone with too many […]