Saturday Writers

Three things I’ve learned from participating in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).

I’ve had Gemma floating around in my head for about two years. The first scene has always been there. I love the first scene. It’s fun and sad and definitely has tension. But I’ve been stuck: what comes after the first scene? I couldn’t get a firm handle on that. Hell, I couldn’t even get [...]

     If anyone were to ask me if I were a pantzer or a plotter, I wouldn’t have a definite answer. I fall somewhere in the middle. I’m not free-spirited enough to be a pantzer and not quite OCD enough to be a plotter, but I do have tendencies in both directions. I guess I could [...]

As far as I can tell, it requires a tremendous amount of skill to convey character, setting, and plot in just a few thousand words. Apparently I’m not that talented.

There’s glitter on my laptop keys. Hmm. Wonder how that happened.
I’m knee-deep in the fleshing out of my latest humorous women’s fiction piece, tentatively entitled “Gemma.” I’m really digging where the story is going. The book idea came from a great opening scene that I’ve had forever, it just took a couple of years for [...]

Since many of my writing mates wrote about Nano, I’m going to get in on the action, too. But from a different perspective. I’m going to write about the unexpected things I got from Nano. Hint: it wasn’t 50,000 words. Not this year.
                The first thing I got was the knowledge that I have [...]

At the time of that story, I didn’t think about how what I listened to affected my writing.

At the time of said offense, I was struggling with plot twists and points it showed me that never would have come up otherwise. Yes, it annoyed me and I took it out on the poor defenseless program instead of where it belonged. Me! I felt like a complete moron for not seeing these things on my own.

In my ongoing efforts to be a more organized writer, which in my fantasies means I’ll be a more effective writer, I’m test-driving various programs touted to help me structure my story, envision my plot, tackle my characters and organize my research. These programs hint that by using them, I’ll steer clear of the middle-of-the-book sag, the curse of the lifeless character and the gaping plot holes big enough to jump a herd of sharks through.