I learned about a family oversight from my niece Shreve Stockton, founder and author of The Daily Coyote. My 91-year-old mother never had her own advent calendar. When I was a kid, she cut and decorated advent boards for my three siblings and me and hung tiny gifts from hooks, one for each day until Christmas. When my sisters grew up and had their own families, they made and decorated advent boards for their children every year but never one for my mom... until this year. The delight in her …
Monday Morning Plot Book Group — the Climax Scene
How do you do endings? Do you put forth effort all the way to the very end? Do you give up before you reach the end? Do you throw something together just to have an end? Do you push yourself even harder to finish with a flourish? Do you stay in the moment of writing your story all the way to the end?The countdown to the end of NaNoWriMo has started. Soon you'll have to remember your life before nanowrimo but for now, you've still got time to write a lot more words. Every word nearer you write to …
See the Crisis for What it is and Keep Writing
I'm trying something new today -- embedding the new video in the Plot Book Group Series in this blog post. It's a first for me. We'll see how it works.(P.S. -- A big reason I'm talking about the Crisis today is because it's that time in November for Nanowrimo writers to be writing the Crisis. In order to have a solid beginning, middle and end by November's end, write the Crisis today and tomorrow...)For more support about the Crisis and highest point in the entire story so far:1) Check out …
When the Climax Fails, the Reader Suffers
In preparing for a plot talk for children's writers and the SCBWI San Francisco/South region last Saturday, I analyzed one of my favorite books from my childhood -- The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. As I read and plotted out the scenes in the Beginning of the story, I was delighted to see all the effective foreshadowing (in 2 instances she shows Mary, the 10-year old protagonist, playing in dirt and attempting to plant cut flowers which foreshadows the passion she develops for the …
Check-point for NaNoWriMo Writers — Recommitment Scene
In life and in stories, every moment is an opportunity to commit to moving forward. To continue to put one word after another deeper and deeper into the great unknown takes courage. To persevere when the primary plot gets tangled in subplots and plot twists and your story appears lost signifies a commitment that transcends logic and demonstrates a belief in the magic and mystery and miracle of the pull of the Universal Story. Check-point for NaNoWriMo Writers Recommitment Scene. Recommit to …
Check-point for NaNoWriMo Writers — Recommitment SceneRead More
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