Where readers, writers, and stories meet.
I wrote the BEST scene last night after coming home from class. Isn’t it funny how a vigorous workshop can totally recharge your creative batteries?
I’d been feeling a bit stagnant lately, writing mechanically, cranking out *blah* chapters that I knew I’d have to come back later and ‘fix.’ This in-class discussion of the chapters I’d submitted for workshop was exactly what I needed to wake up and reengage with my story. Continue reading “Plugging in to your local writing scene”
Today I’m writing to you from The Flying Pig in Algoma, WI. Located 2 miles south of Algoma at N6975 State Hwy 42, The Flying Pig is an art gallery and green space that includes a small coffee shop where you can also grab a glass of wine or a cookie while you write.
A friend from my novel writing class stumbled upon this place, just south of Door County, a while back and invited me to take a day-trip back here to get away from home for a day and get some writing done in a fresh location.
The first thing we did when we got here was walk through the outdoor green space and look at all of the marvelous garden artwork on display. The entire gallery is free and open to the public, so this would be a great place to stop even if you are just passing through with no money. Continue reading “A writing session at The Flying Pig, Algoma, WI”
Writing a book is like putting together a blank puzzle, one on which you must paint each little bit of the picture as you are putting the pieces together. How is that not art?
What is writing to you? Continue reading “Writing is…”
I stumbled upon Kickstarter quite some time ago and played around with the idea of launching a Kickstarter project to fund my writing. Unfortunately, I really didn’t have an actual project to work on at the time. It was more of a general wanting to settle into the writing life and write *something.* Not having an actual project to launch, I gave up the idea and moved on. But recently, my professor and fellow writer, Shana Deets, brought up to my class the idea of setting up Kickstarter projects for our current novels. So, I headed over to the website to give it another look. Continue reading “What do you know about Kickstarter?”
We Bounced
When we were kids,
we were made of rubber.
We just bounced when we hit the floor.
The harder we hit,
the higher we bounced.
We fall down now,
and we just break.
By Mandy Webster Continue reading “When we were kids, we bounced”
I’m working on a novel-writing assignment that is turning out to be far more difficult than I had ever imagined it would be. The assignment is to go to a public place, listen in on a random conversation, and write the conversation down word-for-word, being careful to capture the inflection in the speakers’ voices and imbue the dialog with the mood of the “scene” without the use of description. I thought writing the dialogue would be the hard part, but it turns out that eavesdropping on random conversations is extremely hard when you set out to do it on purpose for a school assignment.
After class Wednesday morning, I decided to stop by a small coffee shop near the school where I teach. I had never been in this particular coffee shop before and did not realize it was a Christian book store/coffee shop until I was halfway in the door. Continue reading “Adventures in eavesdropping: Take One”
Last night, I sat down to write chapter 10 of my novel, and I just couldn’t get into it. I knew what the chapter was supposed to be about, but I simply could not get excited about it. Then I remembered author Rachel Aaron’s advice on getting excited about what you’re writing.
“If I had scenes that were boring enough that I didn’t want to write them, then there was no way in hell anyone would want to read them.” ~Rachel Aaron
So, I sat down with my notebook and began to scribble my thoughts about why I thought the scene I was about to attack was too tedious to write. Continue reading “How to write the most boring scene in your novel”
Is your story stuck? You’re trying to hack out that next scene, but all you can seem to do is, well, hack at it? Put the pen down. Back away slowly. It’s time to stop writing your story and start doing some free writing. This morning, I was sharing with a writer friend some advice that I’ve heard from my professor on more than one occasion, and I think this advice is worth sharing.
Here’s what you do: pick a minor character and try to get into that character’s voice. Pretend like that character is sitting at a bar telling the bartender about what is happening in the story… look at the story from a new perspective. Don’t worry about whether or not the character can tell the story well, just let him or her have his say. Also, don’t worry about writing complete sentences or stopping to fix typos. Simply sit down, tell that editor that’s sitting on your shoulder to be quiet for a while, and start writing whatever comes to mind. Continue reading “Two characters walk into a bar”
Has this happened to you? You create a solid outline of your novel, and you think you have everything figured out, and then BAM! You realize your story has taken off and is completely running away with you. There is far more to your story than you previously thought. You realize you have more to figure out than you could have ever imagined, and it scares the shit out of you. This is where I’ve found myself this past week. Continue reading “Help! My novel is running away with me!”
Is your story making you angry? Maybe you’ve written several chapters, and each of them alone seem like a great start, but you’re having a hard time getting them to work together as a whole. What do you do when you hit these rough patches that make you feel like you will never be able to make your novel “work?”
One strategy I suggest to help you get over that rough patch is to take yourself out of the “official” story for a while, have a couple of glasses of wine (or a couple of beers,) and sit and do some free writes looking at the story from the point of view of the most minor character in the novel. Continue reading “Minor characters have major impact on story”
Write on the World 