These past few weeks, I’ve been killing myself trying to write Ashes of the Starry Sea. I’ve made some good progress, as you can see on the sidebar. Today I broke 200 pages. Not too bad. However, the pace has just been killing me. 4k words per day is something I can do…but 4k words… Continue reading Goal shift for Ashes
Tag: Brandon Sanderson
Genesis Earth pitch and other assorted thoughts on writing
Today I got together with Charlie after her work and discussed how to pitch my novel Genesis Earth. We did it in the following way: I took a few minutes to explain what the book was about, while she wrote down the words that stood out and excited her. Later, I took the words and… Continue reading Genesis Earth pitch and other assorted thoughts on writing
“That’s what it looks like when the infection sets in.”
So said Howard Tayler at CONduit today when he saw the expression on my face at the Aspiring writers Q&A panel. We chatted a bit afterward, and he said something very encouraging: that if I continue to pursue my writing career with the same hunger he saw on my face, he believes I will be… Continue reading “That’s what it looks like when the infection sets in.”
Miscellaneous news updates
I’m so bad at writing catchy titles for my blog posts. CORRECTION: I can come up with catchy, sexy, exciting titles for my blog posts, it’s just that the first one that comes to mind is always dull and uninteresting. Well, too bad. To quote my mother: “suffer!” Item One: State of the summer plans Real… Continue reading Miscellaneous news updates
Living in a state of limbo
Graduation was today. I’ve got another year left, but a lot of my friends are moving on. I took my last exam of the semester on Monday, and my contract at the FLSR ends Saturday morning at 10 am. And I have no idea where I’ll be living for the summer. There’s a chance I… Continue reading Living in a state of limbo
Revision, revision, revision
I finished revising chapter 6 of Genesis Earth today. It took a lot more time and effort than I’d expected. Even though I’d revised half the chapter yesterday, I started from the beginning and changed a lot of the other revisions I’d made. I think this version is stronger, but I’m not sure how it’ll… Continue reading Revision, revision, revision
Running the gauntlet
In the past five days, I have written somewhere on the order of 10,000 words. None of them has been fiction (at least, not explicitly–more BS, if anything). One monster history term paper, one middling poli sci essay, and two exams requiring 2,000 and 1,000 word essays. Blegh. Like pulling teeth. The upside is, it’s… Continue reading Running the gauntlet
This sucks and I’m a horrible writer
It’s getting really, really hard for me not to believe that statement, especially as I finish up with the middle part of this novel. I’m starting to realize that I made a whole bunch of mistakes pages and pages ago, and that the climaxes just aren’t working without everything set up right. I know, cognitively,… Continue reading This sucks and I’m a horrible writer
Worldbuilding
This is what I was doing the other day. The FLSR (Foreign Language Student Residence) at BYU has chalkboards in the common rooms, and I just discovered that those can be WAY useful for diagramming your story. On this occasion, I drew out a couple of space battles, according to how they’d play out with… Continue reading Worldbuilding