Staying True to Your Story & Characters

Last night I was watching Harry Potter: Goblet of Fire with my daughter and I remembered that it was the first book in the series where I felt JK Rowling was starting to manipulate her characters. It wasn’t only that Harry was starting to do things that seemed unnatural, even for a prodigy wizard, the […]

Sick of Writing Advice?

Every morning I get up and I search the twitter hashtag #writing to see if I can find articles by writers with some great advice. I do it as much to network as to find advice because I’m not really looking for advice. I’ve spent more than 20 years writing and the advice articles may […]

Post-It-Note Brainstorming

I have a confession to make: I love paper. You might have noticed this if you’ve browsed my site and have seen my art page. When I write, I do it on a chunky little notepad, sheets of Hello Kitty paper or a spiral bound journal. Even my mouse pad is paper. Sometimes I think […]

Getting Ready for NANOWRIMO – Inspiration! (or: Kick That Muse)

Maybe you’re having a little problem getting your muse to cooperate and you just can’t get that Plot, Character, or Outline down. Is your Muse distracted? You probably have a ton of writing websites bookmarked. You’ve read articles on how-to-write and you’ve researched for days. That might help your skills, but it’s not really very […]

Getting Ready for NANOWRIMO – The Outline

There is a lot of controversy over Outlines. Stephen King, noted author of several bestsellers, says outlines stunt creativity. Many more authors swear by them. You could start an argument that would last into the next century on a message board about their necessity. (Here is a great blog about it) But if you’ve got your […]

Getting Ready for NANOWRIMO – Character

NANOWRIMO starts in a week and it’s a good idea to have a few things down before you get started on trying to write your novel. The first item I addressed yesterday in my blog: The Idea. Today we’ll focus on the best part of writing development: The Character. You can never really go overboard […]

Getting Ready for NANOWRIMO

NANOWRIMO, or National Novel Writing Month, starts November 1st (next Tuesday) and is a great motivator for writers. Muses, though notoriously fickle, are also very competitive. The challenge always brings out your muse. But before you can bring that challenge to your muse, you must have the most important object of a novel: an idea. I always start […]