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The New Beginning
This is part of a series, 30 Days to A Stronger Novel What do you do after you turn in your manuscript? I love Sara Miller Holmes musings about this in-between time. She’s allowing herself to be empty and expect nothing else. She’s letting whims take her to new sections of the library. Allowing poetry […]
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The end
This is part of a series, 30 Days to A Stronger Novel Does the revision process ever end? Yes! How do you know when your novel is ready to send off to a publisher? You don’t. This is all I know: I can’t think of anything else to do that will make it better. None […]
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Stay the Course
This is part of a series, 30 Days to A Stronger Novel Revision can often be a long, drawn-out affair. Work, family, life crises–many things can interrupt the novel revision process. Expect it. Some of you will have a car wreck. Some will have a major computer crash. Some will experience illness. Some will experience […]
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What critics know after two days
Violinist Jascha Heifetz said, “If I don’t practice one day, I know it; two days, the critics know it; three days, the public knows it.” Writing also needs constant practice and dedication to continuous improvement. Writing exercises are similar to musicians playing scales: practice in characterization, varying sentence structure, plotting, idea generation, etc, are all […]
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Time to Write
by Darcy Pattison When I first started writing, I had four children at home, and I was home-schooling several of them. I walked around with an ink pen stuck in my jeans’ pocket to remind myself that I needed to find fifteen minutes to write. In fact, I ruined one pair of jeans when the […]
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2 Useful Books on Creativity
by Darcy Pattison I don’t usually do book reviews of children’s literature because there are so many other blogs who do it much better than I would be able to keep up with. I am, however, interested in new titles that relate to creative thinking, better communication, revision, creative writing, etc. In that vein, here […]