A piece of advice I received from Marty Chan regarding Editor’s comments was, don’t necessarily make the change they suggest. Always look at why the suggestion is made and understand how to fix it in context to the story. His words or wisdom were extremely timely for me. I had just gotten back the edits from my Publisher for Mik Murdoch: The Power Within. When I read some of the comments, my first inclination was to say, “Did she even read the first book?” Then I thought more about why those comments were made and I realized that I don’t want readers to need the context of the first book to ‘get’ the second one. I needed to do a […]
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Resetting the Clock
In the movie Pacific Rim, after every Kaiju attack the Marshall resets the clock. The clock is counting the time until the next attack. Before you start to panic, this isn’t exactly that kind of clock reset. No, the Kaiju that afflict me are less the 500-foot monster variety and more the, holy cow I’ve got a lot of clutter. In my case, the clutter takes the form of partially thought out projects, mostly complete projects, story ideas and so on. Every once in a while it makes sense to take a step back, list everything that I’m working on and reprioritize it all. Some of it becomes my immediate priority, others further down the line and still others might […]
Read moreDull Roar
One of the challenges I am currently facing has nothing to do with too much work. In fact, it is the complete opposite. I have been going full-out with revisions and editing for the past several months, not to mention putting work out on Wattpad. Now that I have met a revision deadline, I’m suddenly without anything pressing. That may not sound like a bad thing, and in fact, it isn’t, but I’m feeling a little lost. I have plenty of things to work on, but nothing immediate. That is the problem. Rather than jumping into one of my other projects, I’m taking a break. Again, not a bad thing. Except, I’m letting myself relax too much. For me, the […]
Read moreFinding Your Voice
I have read a lot of writing advice that says you should write in your own unique ‘voice’. But, what the heck IS your own voice? How do you find it and how do you recognize it when you see it? Those are questions I have asked myself many times and, I suspect, some of you have too. It wasn’t until a few nights ago that I think I finally saw the light. I was mulling over what should be the next scene in one of my books and how I was going to present my characters in it when I realized that I actually know what my voice is. The revelation actually came when I threw away the whole notion […]
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