Remember those old Choose Your Own Adventure books? The ones where you controlled a character’s destiny and guided the direction of the narrative? I’m conducting an experiment that brings that old series of children’s books to mind...
Whenever I imagine my future novels sitting on a bookshelf, I see my full name on the spine. Mine and mine alone.
It all started with a boy, a girl, and a valentine. Well, technically it was the absence of a Valentine’s Day card...
It’s a piece of advice I’ve heard on many occasions: short stories first, then novels.
Some of the characters I’ve enjoyed writing about the most are an inch and a half tall.
At a recent Allied Authors of Wisconsin meeting, I was thrilled to receive unanimously positive feedback on a particular character in the chapter I read. The only problem is all that praise went to a pretty minor character who appears in just one scene in the entire novel and doesn’t even have a name.
If the first draft allows the writer to indulge in a carefree orgy of imagination, a Wild West of whimsy, and a devil-may-care series of experiments, then the editing process demands the writer to abstain, rein it in, and exorcise a host of demons.
In an earlier post, I defined a dabbler as someone who has yet to write one million words while simultaneously implying that the one million words benchmark might be less of a milestone than a state of mind.
I’m not a master poker player by any means, but while reading through the first draft of my latest novel, I couldn’t help but be reminded of Friday night card games from my high school days.
At a recent guest lecture on self-publishing, a fellow attendee asked the featured speaker if she had any advice for someone who is working full time and doesn’t have four to six hours a day to devote to writing.