You intended to finish your novel, memoir, screenplay this year. Well-bruised from prior failures, this year's writing resolution was timid - simply finish. Perhaps you really stretched this year and made the audacious goal of writing and submitting your screenplay by year's end.You still hold out hope you'll succeed, though as each day passes with little or no progress, your energy flags.A resolution is a course of action which means that way back in January 2013, you must have also …
Do You Consider Traditional Publishing Old-Fashioned?
I self-published my first plot book Blockbuster Plots Pure and Simple: Take the Panic Out of Plot nearly ten years ago.In 2004, small independent publishers still struggled to separate ourselves from vanity presses.A vanity press was/is a publishing house an author pays to have her book published. Because anyone could publish any book, a book published by a vanity press was frowned upon and immediately suspected of poor quality writing and no editing. Forming my own publishing company -- …
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I Was Co-Dependent on My Writing
She speaks the simple line while recounting the layers she's had to heal while writing her first book to arrive where she is now, ready to embark on writing her second book. On the other end of the line while attempting to hold steady the vessel for her brilliant insights and wild creativity, I had witnessed what writing her first book demanded of her. As layers disintegrated, pain and muck and gore were revealed. No matter how difficult the journey, she never quit. In her healing, I see how …
Going to Far: Over-Correcting
Writers often swing from one extreme to another before landing on that exact right balance of not too much and not too little.You know you've gone too far in one direction when your critique group gives you feedback that your story needs more or less of something only to find after a week of rewriting you receive feedback to cut back or add more.The terrific thing about this sort of frustrating feedback?Usually, when beta readers focus on the degree of use of specific craft elements, it means …
Grasp Plot and Theme with the Help of a Picture Book
You've been writing off and on all year. You feel good about your characters. You've written exciting action and worked in some terrific twists and turns. You refer to your pre-plot Plot Planner often and everyday face the challenge of finding the next perfect scene to write (or, if you're using The Plot Whisperer Book of Writing Prompts: Easy Exercises to Get You Writing, you're everyday following the next prompt on your way to the end), like putting together the pieces of a jigsaw …
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