Tag: outlining

Prepping for a new novel project

I am so far behind on so many things right now. My in-laws went to Idaho for the week, so all of the childcare has fallen on us while they’re gone, and we’ve just been swamped. I know that there are amazing parents out there who can watch five kids at a time, by themselves,… Continue reading Prepping for a new novel project

How I hacked my ADHD to triple my daily word count

Writing with ADHD can be tough. It’s easy to beat yourself up for being “undisciplined” or “lazy” when the greater problem is that you’re trying to work against your ADHD instead of finding ways to make it work for you. It’s like swimming against a rip current instead of swimming sideways to get out of… Continue reading How I hacked my ADHD to triple my daily word count

Toward a new writing technique

For the last year, I’ve been struggling to write this novel (Children of the Starry Sea, Book 2 of the Outworld Trilogy) according to my new novel writing method, which I’ve been developing since about 2017. The method involves creating a rigorous scene-by-scene outline and cycling through each scene multiple times, so that you basically… Continue reading Toward a new writing technique

NaNoWriMo 2020 Day Twenty-One

Words written: 1,763 Total words written: 30,853 Stories written: 6 Total words behind: 4,147 I’ve been hitting a lot of resistance whenever I try to write a story that’s inspired by drawing Mythulu cards. I suspect that’s because my subconscious mind hasn’t had that much time to work on the story, so the first creation… Continue reading NaNoWriMo 2020 Day Twenty-One

Now I have the perfect ending

Guys, I just plotted out the last two books in the Genesis Earth trilogy, and it is going to have the most fantastic ending ever. I can’t tell you anything about it, since that would spoil everything, but it’s going to be amazing. Perhaps it wasn’t such a bad idea to wait ten years to… Continue reading Now I have the perfect ending

My New Writing Process (or why I don’t believe in pantsing anymore)

For the longest time, I thought I was a “discovery writer.” That is to say, I believed there were two kinds of writers—pantsers vs. plotters—and that I was very much a pantser. It was what I was comfortable with. It was what I defaulted to when I sat down to write. It was the style… Continue reading My New Writing Process (or why I don’t believe in pantsing anymore)

Why writing every day may not be the best advice

When I started writing back in college, the prevailing advice was to write every day. And to be fair, at the time, that was very good advice. I was just getting started on my writing career and had a lot of learning to do. My writing improved by leaps and bounds as I strived to… Continue reading Why writing every day may not be the best advice

Trope Tuesday: The Chessmaster

The Chessmaster is a fun trope, especially when done well. A good villain is always at least one step ahead of the good guys, so when it turns out that he’s three or four or ten steps ahead of them, it can make for some interesting plot twists. Of course, the chessmaster isn’t always the… Continue reading Trope Tuesday: The Chessmaster

Pantser vs. plotter? There is no such thing

I have come to the conclusion that the “pantsing vs. plotting” way of thinking about writing is as impractical and useless as nature vs. nurture, or talent vs. learned ability. Are you a pantser who discovery writes from the seat of his pants, or a plotter who has to outline every character, every plot point,… Continue reading Pantser vs. plotter? There is no such thing