Writing rhythms

Do you pay attention to your writing rhythms? This subject fascinates me, but I seldom see anything on it.
I start out a day warming up with email and/or blogging. Then I pull up a file to start writing or revising. If the work is going well, I write for a while. [...]

Trade v. education market

I think slow.
Don’t put me in a debate that requires me to think on my feet and come back with a snappy answer. I need time to think about the implications of what is said and whether or not I agree.
One of the projects I’m revising is a nonfiction, about the history of American [...]

Choosing scenes

Let’s say you wanted to write the story of “The Three Little Pigs.”
Here are possible scenes:

Joe and Jenny Pig meeting and falling in love.
Joe and Jenny Pig telling their parents that they are going to have babies.

The surprise of having triplets

Various scenes raising those triplets.
The final straw (so to speak) that made Joe Pig decide [...]

Writing v. marketing

How much of your time do you spend actually writing v. the time spent marketing (emailing editors, researching markets, printing mss, putting stamps on envelopes and driving to the post office, networking, blogging, reading, etc.)?
Art and Fear says that it’s normal that an overwhelming part of your time is spent in getting your work out [...]

Placeholders

Sometimes, I put something into a novel and it’s just a placeholder. I know something must go there and this seems a reasonable thing to put in, but it’s not the right thing to put in.
Recognizing a Placeholder
DB was commenting yesterday that she was surprised that I didn’t want the subplot of Dad being [...]

Revision issues

Issues I’m thinking through on my revision:
1. I will rewrite the whole thing. My skills have improved and after a trial chapter, I want to rewrite everything and not just try to patch things in.
2. I want to change the set-up. What you set up, you must resolve. The current set-up, though, [...]

Scales for Novel Writing

For the past year, I’ve written. Lots! But I’ve concentrated on Friday Ideas and picturebooks.
But not novels. I’m starting a novel revision, with editorial input, and it feels rough. I did four new introductions last week and none of them felt right. So, I”ll do four more today, more as [...]

Days of Despair

I can tell I’m in between projects.  I know what I want to do next, but it hasn’t grabbed me, capturing my whole attention.
In-Between often turns into days of despair.   It’s those days when you jump at every phone call, hoping it’s an editor and when it isn’t, your despair deepens.  It’s those days when you [...]

Stop and Look

I’m taking a day to step back and look at the big picture of what type stories I write and what I want to write.  Where do I want to be in five years?
 Sometimes, it’s good to take a hard look at what is on your hard drive.  What stories grabbed you enough to get [...]

RSS in Plain English

Here’s a nice short video that explains RSS Feeds, the method that many now use to keep track of blogs that they read.  Kinda fun way to explain things.
Click
here to subscribe to MY feed.  Or, if you’re on LiveJournal, you can add my Feed to your Friends page with this URL:    http://syndicated.livejournal.com/revisionnotes/