National Novel Writing Month is over, and I did it: 50,000 words in 30 days. What I came up with remains to be seen. I did zero editing throughout the month, only churning away at the word count. I’m nowhere close to being finished with the first draft. (50K words do not a novel make, folks.) But I’ve reached the point in the story that I’m not ready to move forward without reviewing what’s been written, although I haven’t even…
November is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo as we cool kids call it. The gist is to write your tukhus off the entire month, with the goal of having a 50,000-word novel in the can by Nov. 30. If you read my last post, you’ll know that I took my sweet time with my first book. But now I’m accountable to people that only make money when I do, so the luxury of ease is one I no longer…
“The first draft of a book—even a long one—should take no more than three months, the length of a season.” – Stephen King, On Writing Nice advice from Mr. King there, huh? And probably an achievable task if writing is in fact your full-time job. For many of us, especially those of us whose career is still in its relative infancy, that just isn’t the case. Or maybe it’s just me. My first book took three years of on-and-off work…
The Evolution of a Writing Process I've blogged quite a bit about my writing process on the site, probably most definitively in this post. As I progress through writing my third novel, it's interesting to see how the process changes with each project. I've gone from a strict plotter to a semi-pantser (as in, flying by the seat of one's pants), realizing that the distance between those two doesn't have to be all that far. With Welcome to Straightville, I was meticulous…
Oh that the day has dawned, ladies and gentlemen: a marketable manuscript of Blades of Grass is upon us! My loyal readers will attest to this project’s nearly yearlong journey from a hurried NaNoWriMo attempt last November, to a scrapped and reimagined novel in the winter, to a revised and revised and revised final draft by summer’s end. This week – after my gazillionth revision – I finally saw these elusive and sought-after words in my inbox from Steve, agent…
Regular readers of this blog (hi Mom!) have followed the journey of Blades of Grass since it began last fall with NaNoWriMo. In a nutshell for you latecomers, I churned out 50K words, chucked them all and started over in March. Along the way, I had my wonderful agent, Stephen Fraser, checking in with knowledge and advice. Upon my urging, Steve gave me an end of summer soft deadline for getting him a manuscript to review. I translated that into…
Forgive me, Agent, for I have sinned. It has been two months since my last blog post. I've come to the conclusion that I'm a chronic sufferer of Lazy Writer Syndrome. Blades of Grass had been progressing quite nicely through the spring. Regular readers will know the ups and downs I’ve had with this project since starting it during last fall’s NaNoWriMo event. But, as the saying goes, life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans. I decided to…
"When's your book coming out?" I get this question a lot these days. Sometimes I feel like the answer is going to be, "Never!" Although lately the more appropriate response is, "As soon as I write the damn thing!" You see, the first book I wrote, Straightville, U.S.A., will probably not be the first book you read. All roads into Straightville have been temporarily closed. My agent shopped it around to some terrific editors who provided solid, supportive and constructive feedback…
“I hate writing. I love having written.” – Dorothy Parker Winter has been quite the emotional roller coaster for this scribe. My first novel, Straightville, U.S.A., hasn’t found a publishing home yet, and a recent pass from a promising editor had me ready to throw my laptop off the roof. Meanwhile, after churning out 50,000 words of my second novel during November’s National Novel Writing Month, the manuscript was weak at best and not getting any stronger. Between allowing myself…
A quick update: It's been quiet here on the blog for awhile. For the past several weeks, I've been trudging through editorial hell. When I reviewed the manuscript I hurriedly compiled during NaNoWriMo, I loved the premise and the characters I've created but something else was very…off. I have since begun shifting the entire narrative mode, a rather tedious process that has me feeling a little like Blanche Devereaux in this clip. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54y-Mjxz9vw And I'm only halfway through the manuscript. On the…