This morning, someone tweeted “Happy Friday!” and I thought “lol it’s funny because it’s only Wednesday.” (For readers from the future, the crucial context is that it was actually Monday.) I’ve been working from home for 15 years, so I don’t even have the excuse of a change in routine. Therefore, the only logical conclusion […]
It may not be much objectively, but considering I’ve barely touched any non-contract writing since 2018, ten thousand words feels like a significant milestone to me. It’s best to not contemplate how many more I’ll need. My “outline” for this story is 53 pages. One might think that’s sufficiently thorough to have figured out everything
Yesterday’s writing ended up being less about yesterday’s scene than I would have liked, so today I finished that one. (I write these posts around noon when I exhaust my 4 a.m. supply of creative steam + caffeine, so I will sometimes fail to rise to the rest of the day’s aspirations set forth therein.)
(I am completely unemployed thanks to a canceled contract and have lots of nervous energy to burn, so blogging will be daily until one of those things changes. If you’re a blog subscriber and the email notifications get irksome, there’s an “Unsubscribe” option at the bottom of every email. I fully support anyone’s quest for
It was a pace-scribble-transcribe day. I made good on my goal to write the bandit fight—if you can call three petty crooks getting owned by a superior strategist a fight. It’s a Princess Bride-style scuffle that makes everything look ridiculously easy for her so there’s a baseline of comparison when the difficulty escalates and
I got peace and quiet today! 🥳 I didn’t produce many new words because I spent all day whipping a sample submission into shape, but that is now winging through the ether to its destination, so tomorrow, bandit fight! I don’t ordinarily do a nitpicky revise-as-I-go. My first drafts are usually half the length of
There are four people in this house, all on different sleep schedules. I get up at 3-4 a.m. Generally, the person in the living room at that time turns off the TV and goes to bed soon after, leaving me in peace and quiet until the next person gets up around (fingers crossed) 10 and
Let me begin by saying I love a good fall from grace. I know all too well it’s hard at times to find any virtue in being noble when the ignoble are thriving all around. I understand the narrative allure of a good-hearted character who finally says, “Fuck it, I’m going rogue.” The issue for
If the word “theme” gives you flashbacks to high school lit class and your withered soul is croaking “Kiiiiill meeeee,” relax. This is not about guessing the intention of some writer who’s been dead for 400 years (or, more accurately, guessing what the teacher’s guide guesses was the intention of some writer who’s been dead
From the interwebs: My book is a romance, not erotica, because you can take out the sex scenes without affecting the plot! If you can take out any scene without the whole plot falling apart, it’s a bad scene. In romance, sex scenes are markers of relationship development. In many books, the characters are intimately