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Twenty Useful SubReddits for Science Fiction Writers
I do not view Reddit as a place to promote my books, although I’m sure there are subreddits you might be able to do a book plug here and there if you are so inclined, but I do view it as place to forge new connections and tap into the knowledge bases of fellow science fiction writers and fans of the genre.
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Take 5 Friday: Five Ways to Speak More Kindly to Your Writer Self
As writers, we spend a lot of time in our own heads, trying to coax words onto the page. Then, once the words get there, we spend a lot of time trying to reshape them to clarify our ideas. It’s a process filled with self-esteem peril. We end up criticizing ourselves for not working hard enough, not working often enough, not working in the right way, or not working on the right thing. Or, we get frustrated with the words we did produce, wondering why we can’t match the ideal we had in our heads. There’s an awful lot of focus on what we did ‘wrong,’ or on what is…
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Take 5 Friday: Five Gentle Steps To Coax Yourself To Write
Even if you have an excellent writing practice with well-established routines, there will still be times when you just can’t bring yourself to the page. Sometimes, that’s a sign of burnout or that you just need a rest. If that’s the case for you, do what you can to get the rest that you need. But, if this is regular old garden-variety reluctance, a slight grumpy sort of resistance, or just a toddleresque ‘I don’t wanna’ – it might be time for some gentle coaxing. You don’t need to be hard on yourself, this isn’t a time for being cruel in the name of self-discipline. This is an opportunity to…
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Shipping: 7 Ways To Develop Romance In Your Story
How do we "ship" our characters? Can we toy with the feelings of our readers enough that they are rooting for the couple long before the couple is rooting for themselves? How do we pace this romance in such a way that our readers want to see what happens next?
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Take 5 Friday: Five Questions for Leigh Medeiros.
It’s the last Friday of the month and I am thrilled to welcome Leigh Medeiros to our 5 Questions series. Leigh Medeiros is a creativity coach, story editor, amateur naturalist, rescue dog mom, and author of The 1-Minute Writer (Simon & Schuster, 2019.) She’s an energetic and encouraging creative force who can help you settle into your writing, even when you thought you had nothing to say. You can find out more about Leigh’s work on her website: LeighMedeiros.com. 1) Do you find yourself compelled to write or do you have to coax yourself into it? Dorothy Parker once said, “I hate writing; I love having written.” Oh, can I…
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Take 5 Friday: Five Questions To Ask Your Characters
Last week, I encouraged you to ask yourself a few questions about your writing so you could ensure that your practice still met your goals. This week’s questions are for your characters and while they probably won’t take as much soul-searching, they will require some imagination. I use questions like the ones below to round out my knowledge of my characters in my short stories, novels, short plays, and in the mystery games that I write. Sometimes I end up using the answers to “show” my characters to my audience. Sometimes, the answers just help me to figure out how my characters would behave or react in a given situation.…
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Take 5 Friday: Five Questions To Ask Yourself
Most of us have a good general idea of our plans and motivations. But we also have so many different things going on in our lives that it’s easy to forget to check in with ourselves about how things are going. Once we have created a system or a plan, we tend to keep trying to follow it until things go horribly wrong. However, even if things haven’t gone horribly wrong, the plan or system might still not be completely right. It might be causing us unnecessary frustration or stress just because it no longer matches our needs. If we take time to check in with ourselves and assess what…
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Seven Ways To Keep Your Buzz and Write Drunk
During Nanowrimo each year I see dozens of people falling into the editing trap when they should be writing. I get it: I’ve been trapped by those some concerns too. But nothing kills the possibility of finishing your work faster than accidentally falling into editing mode.
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Take 5 Friday: Five steps for building fences (or stories)
For my own amusement, I asked my brother-in-law, who is a handyman and a contractor, to help me compare writing to building a fence. I find it useful to explore how other professionals go about their work to see if using their framework might give me some insight into my own processes. Or, if drawing parallels between their work and mine can help me reframe how I think about challenging parts of my projects. Even though both writing and fence-building can be quite complicated, I think we settled on 5 steps that could get you started for either project. Note: I am paraphrasing Dan’s words here but any mistakes are…
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The Nine Things Your Characters Need From You
With the development of character, it's like I'm meeting a new friend who trusts me enough to send me on an adventure. I need my character badly for, without him or her, I don't have a voice for my story. But my character needs me too. I have the necessities to make them come alive.
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Eleven Signs It’s Time To Share Your Work
When we start writing, we're hesitant and flighty, nervous and fretful. We crave affirmation that we're on the right track, but we stop so often to share our work, we make little progress. Then it doesn't help that there are so many books/websites/blogs to read about how to be a great writer that it just makes us more insecure in who we are.
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Take 5 Friday: Five Questions for Author Glenda Thompson
On the last Friday of each month, I like to share an interview with an author so we can get a glimpse into their writing approach and practice. This month, I’m thrilled to share Glenda Thompson’s wise words about writing. You can find her answers below and you can find out more about her and her work on twitter at PressRattler , on Facebook at Author Glenda Thompson, or, soon, on her website. Glenda’s novel Broken Toys will be released later this year. 1. What aspects of writing are easiest for you? Good question. I think character motivations are the easiest for me. My favorite word in the entire world is…
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Take 5 Friday: Five Steps To Make August a Great Writing Month
August can be a strange month. Either your kids are heading back to school or you are making plans for them to head back (and this year, that might all be up in the air.) Or maybe you are finally getting some vacation time. Perhaps you are trying to balance a busy work day and summer fun in the evenings and on the weekends. No matter what your August looks like, with some planning, you can help make it into a great month for your writing. Here are 5 steps to help guide your writing plans. Identify how much time you’ll have to write. A lot of the time, we…
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Why Write At All?
Some days I have no trouble getting down what I want to say or describing the dream I had, or my strong opinions about my co-worker’s parenting choices, but some days. Ugh. I can’t formulate a sentence describing how difficult this is.