novel writing | novel writing
Dec.29.2012
When you’re revising a novel, everything else goes to hell. My kitchen is a train wreck. My bed hasn’t been made for a month. The dust bunnies in the living room are having secret meetings, planning to overthrow the current administration. I didn’t send a single Christmas card or even make a batch...
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Nov.24.2012
For half of my writing time, I write this blog. For the other half, I write fiction. I’ve been working for three years or so on a young adult fantasy novel which is in a final edit before I send it out into the world.
For my blog, I’ve been exploring the Trickster archetype—that bizarre mixture of...
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Sep.22.2012
Despite the shroud of illness that has weighed me down in recent months, I haven’t been entirely mummified in blankets upon my bed.
For example, the day before Elizabeth and I took a recuperative holiday in September, I limped to the end of the first draft of my next novel, Butchertown....
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Aug.26.2012
It's still August but it's into the last week. I'm still writing like crazy, though, and editing like crazy.
Spent the morning editing "Peerless". A pattern has emerged. I'll read and greatly enjoy what I'm written, having forgotten what I've written, then, bam - a misbegotten sentence or...
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Aug.15.2012
In the writing life there are two kinds of motivation. One is the kind that gets you to apply your backside to a chair and get some writing done every day. The other kind is the reason why your characters do the things they do. Both motivations can be difficult at times, but let’s start with...
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Jun.12.2012
My new pet is so sweet.
Do you know that first flush of love and pleasure where you want to be with it all the time, where its sole existence delights you?
Naturally, it's my 'finished' novel. I put the quotes around it as I pick it up and tweak - words, paragraphs, pages - several times a...
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May.18.2012
Must be Friday, so it must be time for a rant.
I think I've written before how I wake up at least once a week by writing in my head. Something awakens me and words seep in, latch onto ideas and take off. I think so I write, or so I think I write. Wait, what?
I'm in a hotel, checking out today. It's...
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Apr.25.2012
"Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Whether or not someone else can teach you how to write a novel has been debated. The answer usually involves whether the question is asked by a teacher or a struggling, beginning writer. The teacher will say, yes, I can teach you...
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Mar.12.2012
Social Network Update
I’ve now joined BranchOut and Pinterest – as if I needed more social network connections than I already have, e.g., Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Goodreads. I really don’t know what BranchOut is all about and Pinterest is even more of a...
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Mar.05.2012
Commentary:
This is part of the draft I’ve written a couple of years ago. Come to think of it, it’s been that long since I’ve began piecing this together and come up with a complete novel, comprising of more than fifty thousand words. Modesty aside, one of the reasons that continue to bug me...
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