It’s the time of year to talk about New Year’s Resolutions and Goals. But what if you don’t want your hopes, dreams and plans to go the way of every other year’s abandoned or failed New Year’s resolutions? Last year, I joined an accountability group and learned goals must be WRITTEN down. Committing goals to…
So, the Warrior Writer Workshop. I was scared it was going to be too similar to Todd A. Stone’s Novelist’s Boot Camp, but reading the book, Who Dares Wins, I realized the Blood Lessons and the Circle of Success rang much truer and allowed me to take those ideas beyond the writing and see the…
And with this post, I’m diving back into Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook by Donald Maass. I didn’t completely abandon it over the last week, but I haven’t had big chunks of time to work without distractions, so this exercise has taken longer than usual. I think the title of this exercise is a little…
I figured since I talked about it so much, I better share it. The cake was baked as part of my son’s annual Blue & Gold dinner for Cub Scouts. Each year a different theme is chosen for the cake decorations. We’ve done sports & games (a 3-d chess piece), space (a 3-d Vader’s Tie…
Just like a piece of music won’t sound good if it’s played at all the same volume, writing needs to ebb and flow in its power and intensity as well. This isn’t always about the plot and intrigue, but sometimes it’s about your characters. Are they always running full tilt toward those windmills you have…
Working along in the Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook by Donald Maass, now that I’ve supposedly gotten a good grip on who my characters are and what they want, the next exercise is to figure out how to make them larger than life and discover the one thing they’d never say, never do, or never…
I’m sure everyone is going to be sick of the Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook by Donald Maass by the time I’m done, but I’m finding it useful to think about these topics from outside the point of view of thinking only about my characters and I hope it provides someone else some insight along…
Today’s exercise that I’m working on from the Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook by Donald Maasshas to deal with choosing defining qualities. What makes your characters who they are and not someone else? While you may take the easy route ( I seem to do so often enough! ) and choose an archetype that represents…
I got the Workbook that goes with Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass. I read the main book a while ago, and I haven’t had a chance to read much beyond the first chapter of the workbook yet, but what I’m seeing looks like a lengthy, but worthwhile endeavor. The first exercise asks, “Who…
I know. I haven’t been posting lately. Stress levels are high and I tend to shut down during those times. I’ve been swamped with Cub Scout stuff lately. Not as insane as this time last year when the wildfires tossed everything up in the air, but almost. This is DS’s final year in the pack…