I swore to myself I’d find a way to make time to do this challenge. So what if I’m trying to re-write an ending and hammer out another book at the same time? So what if I blog on FOUR different platforms, carry a full-time day job and have two kids – one of whom has special needs. I got this.
I don’t got this. I don’t got this at all. Continue reading “A To Z Blogging Challenge: G Is For Goals”
I started writing my latest book somewhere in the middle. That’s not a bad thing, really. All the good writers and editors tell you to begin your story as far in as you can, feeding your readers bits and pieces of the story’s origin as you go along.
But the problem was, I was really – I mean really – in the middle of the freaking book. The opening made no sense because it wasn’t really an opening. It didn’t grab. It didn’t hook you and pull you in.
Yeah, that’s right. I got stuck. Hit a wall.
It was making me crazy. I knew where I wanted the plot to go, but couldn’t figure out how to bridge the gap from where they were to where they were going. It just wasn’t coming. My brain felt like it was turning to mush from the constant battering of “How?” and I was ready to put a fork in my ear and dig it out.
So I got up and I walked around and I watched a little TV and I sang and I drank some tea and I tried again. I was determined. I just kept writing. It was complete crap, it made no sense, and it took the plot nowhere, but I kept on writing.
Continue reading “So I Wrote Myself Into A Corner Last Night”
Okay, I had to use this pic because I find it hilarious. Yes, that’s exactly how I look when I’m writing. All the time.
This weekend was no exception. I was determined to get a solid outline done on at least two major projects, and hopefully move on to outline a third if I could find the time, and I was just hitting a wall with some of it. Make that most of it.
Then I got a great tip in a writing community I frequent that really helped me get a grip on this stuff. Continue reading “A New Way To Outline That Really Helped Me”
Whether he’s teaching us how to have fun on a rainy day, or feeding us odd-colored food, or reminding us that “unless someone cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better, it’s not,” Theodor Geisel (a.k.a. Dr. Suess) knew how to weave an imaginative tale with an underlying message that still resonates with all ages.
I want to share with you something he once said about his writing that I particularly love:
“I tend to basically exaggerate in life, and in writing, it’s fine to exaggerate. I really enjoy overstating for the purpose of getting a laugh. It’s very flattering, that laugh, and at the same time it gives pleasure to the audience and accomplishes more than writing very serious things. For another thing, writing is easier than digging ditches. Well, actually that’s an exaggeration. It isn’t.”
So this is what I’m doing this weekend. I have not one, not two, but three books I need to work on. One is a definite priority, the other a priority right on its heels, and the third is a “This story is eating me alive and demanding that I write it” sort of thing.
When I was studying theatre in college, we once had a visiting instructor who facilitated an entire workshop on mask play.
It was really fascinating because he used various masks – neutral, masks of agony, happiness, etc. and had us play various scenes wearing these masks. It was a great exercise for us to act beyond the mask (or in spite of it) and use our entire bodies, not just our faces. It was also a great exercise in listening, because the other actor in the scene was behind a happy face or a sad face or a neutral face and we had to really listen for tone and inferences and watch the actor’s body language. Continue reading “The Masks We Wear – And Write”
I know writers who are terribly organized. They have a set place where they do their writing – a desk, a corner, a nook. They have their things set out and they put their head in their work and away they go.
I even have a friend who has an entire house for writing. I’m not making that up. It’s a tiny little house and it’s her personal retreat and I’m so envious when she talks about it I could gnash my teeth. Continue reading “I’m A Writer. Everywhere Is My Workspace.”
That’s right, self. You heard me.
Keep writing until the timer goes off, and you get the mini eggs.
And as soon as you hit 2000 words for the day, you are permitted one episode of “Supernatural” on Netflix.
ONE. I mean it. Continue reading “Oh, The Bribes I Give Myself”
I am seriously brain-dead.
This has been the week from hell, truly. I haven’t been feeling well, I’ve got two kids with strep, my house is wrecked, my day job is crazy-busy and the cherry on top is that I’m facing not one but two big writing deadlines and my grey matter is mush. MUSH. Continue reading “Frazzled And Blocked And Frustrated”
