Last week, we talked about How We’d Spend A Day With One of Our Characters, but this week’s entry in our How I Write series, takes a closer look at our planning process. So, since we’re all writers, we’re focusing on plotting, which inevitably leads to the question: Plotter vs Pantser or some weird mix?…
My word count for this folktale-based story is currently sitting at 2,914. It’s scary to realize that is 500 more words than my first draft of Revealed, which laid out an entire plot line. The past couple days felt like I was pulling teeth again for each word. I think I finally figured out why…
My WIP saw actual progress over the last two days. It’s Spring Break here for the kids and they were already crying they were bored by lunchtime yesterday. Today, I further taxed their powers of self-entertainment by taking them with me to get the tires on the van looked at. The guy told me, “I…
First off, I want to thank everyone for their birthday wishes yesterday! I had a great day and we went out for Japanese for dinner for something different that the kids and I’d never had before: Shabu Shabu, which is named for the “swish” sound the meat makes when you drag it through the boiling…
I have been working on the Flower Queen’s Daughter story. I decided I needed to dig deeper and figure out the heroine’s storyline and what her own journey looks like. So far, I detailed conflicts and beats for the first four scenes. My real issue is with keeping things simple and preventing them from becoming…
I mentioned in a comment of my previous post on trying to figure out how to structure a new romance story that I’d just purchased two craft books and experienced one of those Aha! moments while reading the first one: On Writing Romance: How to Craft a Novel That Sells by Leigh Michaels. I shall…
This is still really rough, but I spent a large chunk of today working on turning my worksheet of scenes with their info and list of beats to be hit into a genuine stab at a blurb and synopsis. I realize that it’s still needs a lot of work and many of the details have…
I hate the ones like on the SAT where they’re not much more than busy work. You know. Lots of irrelevant information thrown at you about what the weather was like when Mrs. So-n-So’s 3rd grade class went to this specific zoo and saw a group of monkeys, so many males and so many females…
So, I’ve been fiddling with a new idea to go with this game-like approach I’ve been thinking about (I haven’t forgotten, Jodi!) while being offline most of last week to spend time with my mom, her friend, and the kids who were out of school. I found a great resource Folktexts where they have collected…
I’m a sucker for puzzles. Nothing makes me happier than finding a solution. Must. Solve. Puzzle. Nearly any type of puzzle, as long as a bit of challenge exists, will keep me amused for quite a while. The sense of accomplishment is one of the reasons I like learning new things and coding (which involves…