Rules. Advice. Words of wisdom. We writers are bombarded with information on how to write better, how to make our work more saleable, how to increase our daily word count etc. There are books on the subject. Blogs (including this one, which I hope you all find helpful ~winsome smile~). Whole conventions, with scores of […]
Category > Process
The Persistence of Recordkeeping
I screwed up earlier this week. I submitted a story to a pro market, and verified its status the next morning. Imagine my dismay when I saw, in the list of previously rejected stories, the same one I’d just sent them. I did what needed to be done, promptly sending a withdrawal and apology to […]
Where’s Your Head At?
Ready, set, WRITE! Right? When you sit down to your writing session, do you jump right in and start typing furiously? Or do you sit down, check emails, check Facebook, send a few tweets, visit a couple blogs, then get up to make a snack, clean your desk, then sit back down only to repeat […]
Focus and the Distracted Writer
I just spent the last month revising two very different short stories, both aimed at markets with looming deadlines. Coming off the post-holiday distractions, I was confident that neither story would take much work (I was wrong) and a whole month seemed like plenty of time to get my work done (I was right, but […]
Voices of Insecurity
Do you struggle to fight off voices of insecurity as you write? From my conversations with fellow writers and creatives, I know I’m not alone in this. These whispers of inadequacy can stop the flow of words and ideas into our first drafts and can undermine our effort to editing and revise and polish are […]
Guest Post: I’ve finished writing my first novel. What the hell do I do next? By Steven James Scearce.
Steven James Scearce is the creator of the speculative science fiction web series Unknown Transmission. His printed work appears in a number of anthologies including Rigor Amortis, Cthulhurotica and In Situ. Mr. Scearce has just completed work on his first novel-length manuscript, a supernatural horror story called Cottonwood. He is a web marketing professional who […]
Write a Bad Book
Earlier this year, I finished my third novel. After feedback from different beta readers, I’ve decided I need to start over from scratch, keeping the same premise and main characters, but making a lot of major changes. Am I discouraged? Hell, yeah. Do I want to just be done with it and be published already? […]
Writer’s Block: Now I Get It
Writer’s block. That state of wanting to write something but not being able to find the words, disliking anything you do manage to write, or perhaps losing your motivation to write altogether. No paragraphs, sentences, or words appear on the page. You are blocked, silenced, inert. Confession: I didn’t used to believe this was a […]
Conversations
This is not a post about writing dialogue. Last weekend, I caught up with an old friend over dinner. We first met in a now-defunct writers’ group, back when I first had an inkling I might want to give this whole writing thing a shot. As one of my first beta-readers and original fans, I […]
Shifting Sand: The Art of Tending Goals
Around the time I was fifteen, I wrote to Marion Zimmer Bradley for the guidelines to her magazine and I collected every copy of Asimov’s Magazine I could get my hands on. I didn’t really know what it meant to be a writer but I knew I wanted to be one and I had it […]
