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The Beauty of Things Unsaid (Advice for the 2nd Draft)
Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass. ~Anton Chekhov Words are a writer’s currency. But too many words – or the wrong ones – will devalue a written work faster than an oil spill devalues an oil company’s stock. This isn’t news to you. You know all too well the struggle to find the right words to tell your story. (Put down the thesaurus. That’s not what I mean. Have you even been reading this blog?) And so you write. And write. And write some more. And you finally finish your first draft. And yet when you go back to read…
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Stuck In the Middle
For some, it happens around the 30,000th word. The lucky ones make it to 40 or 50K before they start to wade through it. You know what I’m talking about. Yeah, the dreaded Middle of Uncertainty. (Okay, no one really calls it that. I just made it up because it sounds imposing). Just what is the Middle of Uncertainty? Well, it’s a lot of things, but in the simplest of terms, it’s that place where you start to lose hope/interest/momentum in this novel that you were certain was going to be a beautiful saga of love, loss, redemption and werewolves. It’s the place where you’re suddenly stymied. Stuck. Or perhaps…
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Thief of Something
I am a thief. There, I said it. I hope you don’t mind that I’m using my blog as a confessional. I feel so much better now. Actually, that’s not true. I lied. I feel about the same as before. Except maybe a little guilty about pretending those four words assuaged some deep-seated guilt. Trust me, my guilt is almost always seated near the surface, like algae. Also? This blogpost isn’t about stealing. You probably shouldn’t trust anything I say from here forward. Except, maybe, these lessons I’ve recently discovered (some for the hundredth time) in my role as a freelance editor of fiction: Pet words and phrases that are…
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Trails for Rabbits and Writers. And Rabbits.
Struggling with your current work in progress? Good for you. I mean, it’s lovely and wonderful and all when the story just flows like gravy over the Spoon Ridge Mountains of your mashed potatoes, but if you ask me, struggle is a good thing. You’re somewhere in the middle of your book, aren’t you. And you’re totally frustrated. And ready to quit. Actually, yes, I am psychic. You’re also not eating enough vegetables and you need to call your mother and the world is going to end in 2012. But before you grab and drop your messterpiece in the virtual trash, read the rest of this blog post. Your novel…
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The Blinking* Cursor
You know how it goes. You follow your inspired muse to the page and start writing and everything’s going great, then 1000 words in, you hit a wall. A big fat concrete wall with barbed wire strung across the top. Maybe the wall is a plot hole. Maybe it’s a character who is suddenly acting out of character. Or maybe you’re just really, really tired because you stayed up all night reading Anna Karenina so you can honestly say “Yes, I’ve read Anna Karenina” should anyone in your writers’ group ask if you’ve read Anna Karenina because that’s the sort of thing you imagine writers in writers’ groups ask whenever…
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7 Writing Myths I Just Made Up So I Could Debunk Them
Yes, there are lots of actual writing and publishing myths out there worthy of review. But everyone else writes about those. Surely you’ve stumbled across a post or two debunking such common myths as “literary agents are out to kill your writing dreams” and “first-time novelists don’t have a chance in hell of getting published.” You don’t need yet another post about those myths, do you? No, you don’t. What you do need is this post in which I make up some writing and publishing myths of my own. Just so I can debunk them. Isn’t this more fun anyway? Oh, and I might have tried to stuff some actual…
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Writing Advice You Should Definitely Ignore
The title of this post is not some clever reverse psychology trick. You really shouldn’t listen to this advice. It’s bad for you and it goes against everything you’ve ever heard from all those lovely and wise literary agents out there. The Chips and Nathans and Janets and the rest. (I’m not being sarcastic here. All the agents I’m thinking of are completely lovely and incredibly competent and smell like cupcakes.) So why am I writing this post? Because sometimes advice that’s perfect for The Many is perfectly wrong for The Few. I’m not saying it’s bad to be among The Many. It’s actually a great place to be as…