Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month) starts next Tuesday, November 1st. Are you ready? I did it a few years ago, resulting in an early draft of my novel, Emma Jean’s Bad Behavior. And I’m planning to do it again this year to knock out a draft of a romance novel I have in mind. I […]
You’ve revved up your brain, planted your butt in the chair, and now you’re ready to write. I sometimes envision this moment as that of a piano player: you place your fingers on the keys, expecting great music to pour forth….and nothing happens. You freeze. You don’t know what to write. Or the words won’t […]
(For the best part of this whole post, scroll to the end for the video. Seriously.) When last heard from on Sunday, I was extolling the virtues of meditation and other such mental activities. Which might lead one to believe that one can sit in one’s chair and let one’s mind do all the work. […]
I’m leaving for France (Paris and Ceret) soon. I’m not one of those people who pack and repack a week ahead. No, you’ll find me throwing clothes in the suitcase the night before. But, and this is a big but—when the time comes for me to commence said throwing, I will know exactly what I’m […]
So, my novel manuscript, the one I’m almost done rewriting, originally came in at over 107,000 words. I know. Waaaaaay too long. “But part of it is recipes,” I told myself. Right. Like maybe 500 words. Under orders from my agent, I’m in the process of cutting it to under 100K. (I’m […]
I’m back. It didn’t seem like much of a hiatus, at least from this end. And I’m still not finished with the rewrite. But I’m making excellent progress and feel very good about it. (And, so you don’t think I’m all fakey optimistic, let me just remind you that I sat out most of July […]
Yes, you read that headline correctly. I was without internet for a week. One whole freaking week. Of course, as luck would have it, I was out of town for part of that time, but still. Come on. It started when a car ran into a pole a few blocks away. Sheared the damn thing […]
Every morning on my calendar I note how many words I’ve written (my main fiction writing time is early in the morning). My goal is 1500-2000 words a day, which is a nice pace for me. If I’m on, I can hit 2K easily, but on off days, 500 words is a stretch. Counting words […]
Feel the fear and do it anyway is one of the great all-time phrases ever. And I certainly can’t take credit for the words. It was the title of a book that came out years ago, by Susan Jeffers, and I clutched that book to me like a life raft at the time. I was […]
So, today is Friday and usually often on Friday I do a round-up post called Five on Friday in which I tell what’s going on in my life. As I started to write that post today, I realized that most of it would be taken up with information about the workshop I’m going to teach […]
