Treading Water in Writer Land, and Getting Bogged Down in Facts
If it seems like my Blog Posts have been shorter than usual lately, that’s because they probably have been. Every week, I find myself blurting out, shocked, It’s Friday?! and scrambling to figure out what to write. It’s not that I’m behind exactly; I’m just treading water and counting on not getting a leg cramp. I was doing the math on my 2017 production schedule this week (bless Excel formulas when they work), and it wasn’t pretty, but it was doable. Barely. But that does mean I’ll probably be making some changes around the Blog and social media to focus Read more…
News from the Word Mines: Polishing One Pit and Digging Another
Just a quick status report this week on the new Dead Hollow series—I’m neck deep in the storyboards (basically a very loose outline, a paragraph or two per chapter) for Book Two, and the poop is about to hit the oscillator! (Can you tell I’m almost giddy today?) My editor and I have also finished the first round of the Book One (Prodigal) copy edits. She found a couple of things to tweak that helped the story, and I felt particularly gratified that she didn’t get hung up by the seeds I’d deviously planted for Book Two. I’ve mentioned before Read more…
Continuity, In Fiction and In Life
Happy Writer News: the Prodigal manuscript goes to the copy editor this weekend. Woo hoo! I finished my own last pass yesterday, and I’m just wrapping up beta reader feedback. I’ll be interested to see if my editor finds any continuity issues. Continuity is always a bugaboo for me. For example. during Prodigal’s rough draft, I once started the day by writing a chapter in a different house. Let me be clear: I was still in the same house. My characters changed houses from the scene I’d drafted the day before. 😜 I’ve also joked about devoting a single massive Read more…
Subtleties of Setting: How Do I Avoid Triggering–or Creating–Stereotypes?
After high school, I went to a small, liberal arts college in Massachusetts (go Ephs!) that prided itself on diversity of every kind. This included geographic diversity, with students hailing from every state and a butt-load of countries. (A butt-load is a lot, by the way.) I always joked that I was the token West Virginian, but there was one other person from West Virginia in my class. We never actually met, so I don’t know if we were related. See, that’s the kind of joke you can make if you’re from West Virginia. (Or Kentucky; the token Kentuckian and I Read more…
Writer’s Little Helpers (Not That Kind), and an Addendum to Last Week’s Post
This week… yeah. Wow. I generally don’t talk politics on the blog, and I won’t start today, but not acknowledging that this has been a momentous week would be dishonest. Whether you’re elated or devastated or somewhere in between, I suspect many if not all of us are feeling pretty wrung out by the past year, coupled with the release of a burden being lifted. Since I’m being honest, I’ll share that I figure every day this week I managed to put on pants (albeit yoga pants) and not put vodka on my cereal or eat grass (wait—the dogs do that) Read more…
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