You hear a lot in the blogosphere and twittersphere about NaNo (NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth–November). For everyone that jumps gleefully on the bandwagon there are scoffers who say you can’t write anything of value when you push yourself to write 50,000 words in 30 days. The key, of course, is that a writer knows this…

I’ve started getting critiques back on both the synopsis and the opening scenes of Marks of Repentance. I’ve spent some time buffing the synopsis in the past few days–and writing *the pitch*. Think of that as back cover copy. Something short, just a few sentences to intrigue the reader. Kristin, an agent with Nelson who…

Anyone who’s read Brandilyn Collins novels about the fictitious town of Kanner Lake, Idaho may remember the character S-Man, who takes a seat in the Java Joint to write his science fiction novel. This character was modeled after Stuart Stockton, who just sold his novel Starfire to Marcher Lord Press for spring 2009 release. Brandilyn…

Last weekend Jim and I headed to Kalispell and the Flathead Valley in Montana. It’s not that far from home, and we’d never been. Let me show you a few of the settings that may find their way into my NaNo novel during November. Click on any of these photos to enlarge them. This is…

After getting the gears from Mar and Jean about my whining about lack of writing, I decided to do some writing, so that I wouldn’t have to whine about not doing it. Hey, it’s perfectly logical, if you think about it. No? You’ve thought about it and it doesn’t work? Oh well. It works for…

that the guard now has a name. Hereinafter he shall be known as Chiioke. I gave in this morning and re-did the outline (again). It’s something like its fourth incarnation, and there are some serious holes coming in the climatic scenes. I know who all has to play the game for those scenes, and what…

So I’m pretty good at procrastinating, altogether. I’m still playing with my shoot-from-the-hip novel, Connect the Dot, on the Palm most mornings at work. Poor girl. She’s in over her head. And I’ve made progress on Marks also. But in the spirit of many hands making light work, I’ve been working hard with Maripat in…

This has been a crazy busy week with not a single word of fiction written, edited, or even (sadly) thought about. Unless you count thinking about not thinking about it for this blog post. ANYway… One of the things that’s been happening is that our son and daughter-in-law are moving back home after six years…

Are you ready? Here is the cover for Raspberries and Vinegar, digitally created by Hanna Sandvig. If you’re thinking her style looks familiar, it might be because she created this blog’s header as well as the one at To Write a Story. With no further ado. . .Ta Da! Aren’t Jo and Zach adorable??? And…

Who am I? What makes me unique as a writer? In seeking to find my path as a blogger, I need to figure out what makes me different than the kazillion other unpublished writers out there. Whatever the intrinsic value of ‘me’ is will translate into everything I write, novels as well as blogposts. Some…

Are you ready? Here is the cover for Raspberries and Vinegar, digitally created by Hanna Sandvig. If you’re thinking her style looks familiar, it might be because she created this blog’s header as well as the one at To Write a Story. With no further ado. . .Ta Da! Aren’t Jo and Zach adorable??? And…

An Esmerelda (or rose!) by any other name would be just as sweet, wouldn’t she? I think not. What we name our characters is important. If you’re like me, the story swirling around in your head can’t begin to mesh until you’ve found just the right name. Here are some tips. Click to read the…

I got back the rest of my Genesis contest scores early this week and am somewhat amused by how much of a mixed bag they are. Looking at the averages, I don’t think I was really close to finaling in either Romance or Women’s Fiction. Some things I already knew. For instance, that writing in…

Yup. That’s what I’ve been doing today. I have a very rough draft of a 1300 word synopsis written. I referred to my scene outline a few times to make sure I had the sequence of events correct, but mostly I just wrote it. It took a solid couple of hours, but now that something…

Some of you may have seen this YouTube video going around, but for those who haven’t, here are the emotional stages of writing a novel. Enjoy! I’m on the road today, heading for a friend’s son’s wedding. Enjoy your weekend 🙂

How many stories do you have in progress at any one time? My answer used to be ONE. At least one per stage! And while that is still my preferred number, I’m juggling edits on two projects right now. Here’s the status lowdown: Joy Comes in the Morning–retiring. A trusted friend and I read through…

Raise your hand if you’re writing a series, or a set of linked novels. Keeping everything organized for one book can be hard enough, but how can you possibly organize information for multiple books? You don’t even know what you’ll need to reference again! It’s hard to choose what’s important, so it’s best to assume…

When writing a novella collection with three others, all living in various parts of the continent, we face the problem of how to coordinate our stories. Of course, we can send a lot of emails. We could even talk on the phone if we wanted (I’m not a phone kinda gal!) We could chat via…

Who are your allies? Does it matter if you have any? On June ninth, Randy Ingermanson posted about allies on his blog, and it got me to thinking about the people in my writing life who fulfill this role. What are Allies? Randy sez: Allies are your writing buddies. They are your equals or near-equals….

In just a few days, I’ll be able to make an announcement that’s been a long while coming. Here’s a teaser: I hope you’re curious! Many of my blog readers have been here with me a long time and seen the ups and downs of my writing career. Things are changing. Rapidly. And I need…

Late Friday evening I bumped Joy Comes in the Morning Version 7.5 out to the four gals who promised me a full emergency crit. One already reports being half done (mind boggling), another says she is one third through. I just can’t say a big enough THANK YOU to you all for being such awesome…

I’ve had so many crits now on the opening pages of Marks of Repentance that I’m more confused than enlightened! There are so many things that the first few paragraphs must do: catch the attention of the reader, provide a sense of setting and a sense of the character AND a sense of the conflict…

When I was a kid, I started quite a few stories that I never finished. That’s partly because I had no clue what went into making stories, but it’s also because I wrote about things that sounded enchanting to me, things far from my own life on Manitoba’s prairie. I was a scrawny little kid…

Guest Post by Krista Phillips I love it when people come to me and say, “WOW! You wrote a book? How do you do that??” For that matter, i was the same way when I started out. The thought of filling all those pages with words that were coherent and that people actually wanted to…

I cleared the 50K today, and may even finish the novel tonight. Apparently one of the reasons I revise is to grow novels to an appropriate length… Anyway, whew.

I’ve been reading George Martin’s fantasy saga A Song of Fire and Ice for over a month now and am mid-way through book three. Book four is now out. There are days I love the series and days I am bogged down and think it will never end. Sometimes the things I love and hate…

I cringe phyically that I dare say this out loud: I don’t think this novel, Marks of Repentance, needs massive revisions. I’ll do a little tidy up, send it out to critiquers, and they’ll doubtless have different ideas. Oh well. What I see so far: More hints of what the antagonist is up to early…

I’ve been thinking more about Allison Bottke‘s novel, One Little Secret. Niki was unhappy that I gave the book a negative review. Her take is that, having accepted a free novel (thereby agreeing to promote it on my blog), I owe the author a positive review. I disagree with that. In fact, some books that…

From the journal of Author Elizabeth Bear, They Must Need Bears: On exposition: like everything else in writing, it’s a tension, and a line that you will wobble back and forth over a thousand times while you learn your craft. First you will not explain enough. Then you will overcorrect and explain too much. Then,…

Marks of Repentance has been stalled on a difficult scene (gotta love that border guard dude) for over a week now. Yesterday afternoon Maripat brainstormed with me on how to fix that scene as she critted the novel for me last year. My brain has just gone around and around in circles trying to get…

Way back in February I posted that I had won a free copy of Create a Character Clinic by author Holly Lisle. It’s in e-book format and I printed it out and popped it in its very own binder. I haven’t done any first draft work since Nano, so I haven’t had a solid opportunity…

It’s been a crazy week, and I’m suspecting the whole month may look this way. At the moment the first week of the Effective Viewpoint Workshop is finishing up at Forward Motion. We’ve got 18 participants getting into hands-on exploration of the tools of point-of-view. So sure, we may still wind up using multiple third…

Yup. That’s what I’ve been doing today. I have a very rough draft of a 1300 word synopsis written. I referred to my scene outline a few times to make sure I had the sequence of events correct, but mostly I just wrote it. It took a solid couple of hours, but now that something…

Something like 8 1/2 hours to go here. Around the world, the calendar rolls over to November first, one timezone at a time, and thousands of crazy people begin their own private (and collective) Nano insanity. We pledge to write a minimum of 50,000 words in the month of November, and some of us are…

I was blog surfing this morning and ended up at Touch of Ink’s blog” and from there discovered this article on facing every writer’s second nightmare. The first nightmare has to be never selling any book at all, no matter how hard you’ve labored over it. The second nightmare is selling a few books and…

The story streamed well today, but I can’t find a snippet that makes any sort of sense at all without context. Today’s words came in at 3173. I’m happy.

Being unemployed for the past few months has left me with a bit of extra time on my hands. (And if you believe that, I’ve got an igloo with air-conditioning to sell you in the Yukon.) So it only seemed natural to start a new website. Am I crazy? Only time will tell. What I…

Chapter 23 of *False Perceptions* is complete at 3472 words, bringing the book’s total thus far to just over 60K. Still, I’m not quite meeting my word count goals of 2K per day with yesterday’s 1695 and today’s 1777. Are my goals unrealistic? Or is it just that I’m busier with other things than usual?…