I love short stories. I love how concise they are. I love how you can just enjoy them in an afternoon. They are easy to recommend them to a friend because it's not a time suck. If they don't like the story it didn't take long and they weren't that invested. But I find them … Continue reading Why Short Stories Are Hard to Write (For Me)
I spent weeks praising my work and saying I was blessed beyond compare, but that changed quickly middle of last week. I got brought into the office and told there wasn't enough work to keep me. I packed up my things (left my pens by accident and I'm still bugged about that) and went on … Continue reading Writer’s Self Care
I am currently eating Chinese food and staring at two lines in an outline. Just two lines. It's been nearly a month into the new year and I cannot write for the life of me. The most I've written where these blog posts, and even then, part of me feels like I'm phoning them in. … Continue reading Beating that New Year Slump
This week, in the US, is Thanksgiving. It can be both a great time to catch up on writing and an absolutely terrible time to catch up on writing. Most years I would say it's an easy time for me. I would spend time with my parents and sister, eat too much, and write. There … Continue reading NaNo and Family
Ever been just thoroughly stuck in your novel? NaNoWriMo is a notorious time for everything you've been planning to just disappear. It's like all of your prep work was a beautiful dream and about half way through November you get woken up by your loud alarm clock and forget everything. I touched on what you … Continue reading Using Your Resources
If you've been following my blog for a bit, you'll have noticed I've mentioned Word Wars a fair few times. I find them to be a fantastic way to bolster the average amount of words written and it's a great way to break out of writer's block. But What is a Word War? A Word … Continue reading I Declare a Word War
I will say that any advice I give you is not one size fits all. I haven't published a novel myself, but I do copywriting every day. I went to school for broadcast journalism so I know how to make sentences easy to read and understand. I know what I do and don't like when … Continue reading Preptober #4: 10 Tips Before You Dive In
The third week of October is upon us and I have another preptober prompt and discussion. This week we'll be talking about dialogue. I've only read one or two novels were dialogue wasn't important, so I'll say that focusing on how your characters talk is not only important but crucial to making your story flow. … Continue reading Preptober #3: “Write” Way to Talk (Perfecting Dialogue)
Last week, I gave you a lazy outline, and in that I talked about listing out and creating your characters first before diving in to write. Now, let me talk about the character creation. When I get to writing down my characters, I've already spent a long time mentally creating them. I've spent a long … Continue reading Preptober #2: Character Creation Isn’t Scary Just Time Consuming
I am a dreadful outliner. I barely plan my blog posts (I've gotten better, but sometimes my topics are spur of the moment). But I am trying to get better at my writing, at my blogging, and consequently, better at my outlining. So let's work together to create a lazy writer's outline. Or more of … Continue reading Preptober #1: A Lazy Writer’s Guide to an Outline
