About Writing Archives - Page 9 of 54

NaNo 2017 – Day 2 (AKA I have a chapter!)

Posted on November 3, 2017 by Michell

An amazing thing happened today – I realized I finished the first chapter of my soon-to-be masterpiece. This is important to note as the very first book I wrote took me twenty-five (25) tries and several months. I have now managed it in one try and two days. Perfect first chapter? Not by a long shot. Written and therefore editable? Absolutely! Challenges for the Day Work. Again. Not that it was a bad day. It was quite good actually but it does take away from writing books time. 🙂 We also had the whole family together for dinner. That is a rare thing with both my kids/young adults/young grownups having their own lives. It was awesome but also meant I […]

NaNoWriMo 2017 is Almost Here

Posted on October 24, 2017 by Michell

NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, is almost upon us once again. NaNo holds a particularly special place in my heart. It has been going on since 1999. I participated in my first one two weeks after completing my first ever novel in 2005. I will confess, I was worried, even a little scared, that first year. I had just spent seven years writing my first novel and I couldn’t possibly see any way to write 50,000 words in only 30 days (that is the challenge of NaNoWriMo, btw). Twenty-two days later, I hit that 50,000 word mark much to my own surprise and delight and I’ve never looked back. I have participated in NaNo six more times since then […]

What Makes a Book? (Pt. 2 – Edits)

Posted on September 11, 2017 by Michell

As I mentioned in the previous post, edits are an important, nay critical piece of the process. I can’t tell you how often I have heard people complain about a story they were reading that was riddled with errors and how they simply couldn’t finish it. I’ve also heard many complaints about books that don’t have enough cohesion or are missing a critical piece. These complaints are both examples of poor/insufficient/non-existent editing. “But wait!” you say. “Edits were not the first part of the your previous article. What about finding a publisher or the contract piece?” To that, all I can say is, there are tons of publishers and articles on how to query them. I know I can’t really […]

Music

Posted on August 29, 2017 by Michell

There is a very strong connection between music and writing. Both tell stories. Both can bring forth very strong emotions in the recipient. For me, music represents yet another avenue for inspiration. For example, as soon as I heard Kiss from a Rose by Seal, a story popped into my head. The imagery from the song was so strong the story was almost immediately there. It took me a while to work out all the details for the story, but once I did, I had to write it. That has happened other times too; a song has inspired a character or a setting or plot points. I wonder if stories do the same for song writers? Music also provides me […]

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