Over the past month, I’ve been revisiting a story I wrote several years ago. It has a nice premise, but the story itself was sort of a wreck. There was very little in the way of plot, and no conclusion at all. The characters and setting were both strong, and…
It’s summer in Indiana, and along with a ridiculous storm season and a disgusting surge in tick population, that means the garden is at full tilt. Tonight I had peas and radishes from the garden, and in the next several weeks we’ll be getting carrots, green beans, tomatoes, and green…
Last week I got fantastic feedback from a semi-new friend. We met via Twitter in December and discovered we had similar writing taste as well as a lot of other things in common. Then we met randomly in person when we discovered we had a connection through my job. So…
I hope this entry still sounds coherent when my Benadryl wears off. I’ve been suffering a violent allergy attack all day, which for me involves a plethora of violent sneezes in addition to congestion and itchy eyes and nose. The rest of it I can deal with, but the sneezing…
According to my novel outline, I’m 9 scenes away from finishing the novel revision. And I’m stuck at the scene that takes place right before the major showdown. I have to get Character C and Villain A to a certain physical location and set the scene for the showdown to…
To give myself some motivation to keep working on the revision, I’m posting an excerpt of the novel I’m currently revising (again) to try to get it ready to query agents. Any and all critiques are welcome. This is the first eight pages of my novel Maze of Moments, a…
And lately some of the casualties have been a couple of scenes I always liked and a character who, honestly, sort of annoys me. But fortunately I’ve discovered a few foxholes, like a couple of scenes with a new character I like more than I expected, or a way to rearrange the…
After a frustrating start, I’ve managed to be pretty productive tonight. I cleaned off my desk so I’d have a lot of space to spread out the manuscript printout that I’d scribbled all over…and then couldn’t find the first 27 pages. After a while I remembered (vaguely) that I had…
I rewrote the beginning of Shaper so that the first two hundred words are snappier, have less drama but more action, and hopefully get to the catalyst event quicker. How sad is it that this feels like a major accomplishment?
WC: 1,093 Scenes: >1 LOL! I’m finally really getting to the nitty-gritty of the novel revision. I’ve pretty much completed my line-by-line copy editing, and now I have some scenes to go back and fill in. I’ve got note cards for them all, I know where they go, I know…
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