I am now 20% finished with Ashes of the Starry Sea. Huzzah! The story is definitely picking up steam. In related news, my seven day totals has peaked higher than it’s been in the last two weeks, up above 17,500 words. Inshallah, that number will rise to +24,000 befoore the end of the week. In… Continue reading Twenty percent, Writers of the Future, and the INTERN
Tag: Thoughts and Reflections
“Why people read”
Dave Farland puts out this great e-newsletter called “Dave’s Daily Kick-in-the-Pants.” For the kick today, he suggested the following exercise: You probably have a good idea about what you want to write—horror, mainstream, fantasy, historical, romance, westerns, religious fiction, and whatnot. Sit down for ten minutes and on the left-hand side of your paper, list… Continue reading “Why people read”
something
So…I figure it’s been a week and I should probably post something on this blog. Wow. Well, work is underway on Ashes of the Starry Sea, and I’m starting to have a love-hate relationship with it. Most writers say you first novel isn’t that good, and you just need to get it out of your… Continue reading something
Heaven’s library
2,943 words today, even though today was the first day of Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers. I’ve reached the major climax of the book–the moment I’ve been replaying over and over in my head. Perhaps this novel is not as bad as I’d thought–perhaps I can pull this off. The current incarnation is terrible,… Continue reading Heaven’s library
Outlining for a discovery writer
I’m almost finished with the rough draft of Bringing Stella Home, but I can’t shake the feeling that this draft really sucks and is full of holes. Part of that is probably that I wrote the whole thing out of the top of my head. The only part that I really took the time to… Continue reading Outlining for a discovery writer
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
The second wind of inspiration
The more I write, the more I’ve come to realize that in order to finish a novel, you have to rediscover something powerful about the story that motivates you to tell it. The thing that motivates you to start the story is rarely the thing that drives you to finish it. Around the second half… Continue reading The second wind of inspiration
4k a day
It’s late, but I really need to write something of my recent thoughts on this blog, so this is going to be a stream-of-consciousness word-vomit sort of post. But please keep reading, it probably won’t be uninteresting. I haven’t been posting much on this blog recently, but I’ve been thinking a lot about my writing… Continue reading 4k a day
“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.”
13,837 words in a day?
Yeah, that’s right. Believe it or not, I barreled through about 13,837 words today. That’s thirteen THOUSAND, not thirteen hundred. Now, only about a thousand of that was new stuff that I was writing. Most of the rest of it was rearranging scenes that I’d already written, touching them up only a tiny bit. I… Continue reading 13,837 words in a day?