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Wisdomous Wednesday: Stop in the Middle of
Jun 29, 2011
Wisdomous Wednesday is a weekly series of posts with advice about writing ranging from craft to navigation through the publishing world. If you have some wisdomous thoughts you’d like to share here, don’t hesitate to contact me. I love advice from other writers!
I think one of the hardest things about writing is getting started. There’s something about the blank page that is pretty scary–not in an “it’s gonna eat my face” way, but in a “now you have to prove things” way, and a “everyone’s expecting you to be awesome” way. Even harder than getting started at the beginning is getting started on a new scene after stopping a project for a while. You don’t have the excitement of first lines and unlimited potential to get you going.
What is normal?
Jun 27, 2011
I think most writers have been labeled “weird” at some point in their lives. (Especially those of us who write science fiction and fantasy!) We like reading more than most people, we’re often into geeky things, we’re happy being totally alone for long stretches of time, we do things in the name of writing and creativity that would land other people in some sort of therapy. (See previous post about talking to oneself while writing!) I think part of why joining the writing community online is so much fun and such a revelation for so many aspiring writers is because you realize for potentially the first time that you’re not alone. You’re not weird–you’re brilliant.
Wisdomous Wednesday: Write Aloud
Jun 24, 2011
Wisdomous Wednesday is a weekly series of posts with advice about writing ranging from craft to navigation through the publishing world. If you have some wisdomous thoughts you’d like to share here, don’t hesitate to contact me. I love advice from other writers!
So, turns out I’m pretty incompetent at new to WordPress’s post scheduler thingy. It worked for me for two weeks and then the first time I started to get comfortable, turns out I scheduled it but didn’t SCHEDULE IT (there are like two steps to this process, guys, it’s pretty complex) so it didn’t post. So, uh, today’s Wednesday post is actually showing up on Friday. Just pretend with me that it’s two days ago, and we’ll all be happier for it.
Wisdomous Wednesday: Don’t Edit While Writing
Jun 15, 2011
Wisdomous Wednesday is a weekly series of posts with advice about writing ranging from craft to navigation through the publishing world. If you have some wisdomous thoughts you’d like to share here, don’t hesitate to contact me. I love advice from other writers!
Today’s tip is for writers who have a tendency to get “stuck” while writing first drafts. I speak from experience–I often get bogged down somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000 words into the manuscript. The manuscript seems sludgy, and no matter how I tweak it, scenes aren’t flowing the way they should. More often than not I used to psych myself out of the manuscript entirely, abandoning it for a new idea.
Celebrations and Lockets
Jun 13, 2011
So here’s the thing–I never actually did anything to celebrate my book sale. I mean, I danced around and told my family and so on, but I didn’t crack open any champagne or go out to dinner. One of the things about going down the agent/publisher path is that you can’t be completely transparent about what’s going on, but things happened for me along the way that ended up leaving me really wary of believing it was real. So it was a gradual realization for me–days and weeks went by and no one said “Psych!” and even now, it’s still an ongoing process of believing that it’s happening.
Progress Updates!
Jun 10, 2011
So first, the big news: THE IRON WOOD has sold in Israel!! My mind is just boggling. The idea that my little book has not just found one publisher, but also found homes overseas, and is now going to be published in an entirely different alphabet? No way to process that!
Wisdomous Wednesday: Goal-setting
Jun 08, 2011
Wisdomous Wednesday is a weekly series of posts with advice about writing ranging from craft to navigation through the publishing world. If you have some wisdomous thoughts you’d like to share here, don’t hesitate to contact me. I love advice from other writers!
Dreams are tricky. If you never go after them, they’ll always be there as a nice security blanket, a sort of “what-if” that you can take out and admire whenever you’re feeling low. Going after them, though, means that you’re introducing the possibility of failure. And if you fail, that nice shiny dream might go kerplut, and no one wants to carry around a squashed dream. Not nearly so shiny. Writers who decide to pursue publication risk that kerplut every day, which is a pretty terrifying thing when you want something badly enough. So how do you actually go about pursuing a dream that big?
Home Again
Jun 03, 2011
Well, I’m back in the U.S. again. Tada! I’m staying with my parents while I sort out work/apartment/etc. It’s definitely an adjustment, learning to work with people around all the time, as in Australia I had perfect quiet and stillness all day while my housemates were at work.
Wisdomous Wednesday: Try Everything
Jun 01, 2011
One of my new goals moving forward is to become a more consistent blogger–I tend to let the blog grow cobwebs far too often! So as step one, I’m starting a weekly feature called (oh-so-creatively) “Wisdomous Wednesdays,” wherein I will share tidbits I’ve gleaned over the years about writing. It’s a bit cheeky, as they’d say in my other homeland of Australia, given that I barely know what I’m doing myself on any given day, but hey. If we can’t pretend to be wisdomous now and then, then why are we writers? I can only share what works for me, but if even one other writer out there finds something in here that’s useful, then I say huzzah!
Transitions
May 23, 2011
Almost exactly one year ago, I got on a plane to fly to Australia. I had about 20,000 words of a new book, a lot of emotional baggage, and a metric ton of doubts. Not much to go on, really, but I knew I had to get moving on my dream of being a writer or I’d be waiting for something to happen to me forever.