It’s early morning and snow is falling fast and wet outside the warehouse windows. Apart from the whoosh of the occasional car and the steady hum of the ventilation, it is quiet as the green coffee beans wait in burlap sacks for the roaster. She arrives in a wet beanie, cursing cheerfully at Mondays and the weather, and the dusty smell of husks and paper is overtaken by something sweeter curling up through the stale air—the bloom of coffee roasting.* Continue reading
If you’re anything like me, then you’ll know that the closer you get to a story the harder it is to objectively question it. You’ve spent so much time there and it works so well in your brain that it’s hard to take that mental step back and look for problems.
I’ve already talked about the importance of stress testing a world (see my first article on world building) but we haven’t covered the best ways to start questioning your world and finding the breaking points. Continue reading
Is it a life form? Is it a flower? Is it a piece of art?
Following up from Wesley’s great post, we’re continuing our look at world building!
World building can be intimidating and overwhelming, but no one should ever be discouraged from attempting to build a world for their story.
You already have a huge natural advantage when it comes to world building because you actually LIVE in a WORLD! And it’s full of examples and good ideas you can steal for your own story. Continue reading
Suspense.
While reading—it keeps us turning the page with sweaty hands.
While writing. . . sometimes it’s just downright a pain.
If I can cause my reader to grow a few extra gray hairs from my writing, I count that a success. *I apologize ahead of time to any of my readers hoping to keep their luscious colorful locks hair.* Here are some of the basics for adding suspense I use.
My novel has been under the knife since February. The goal? 20-30k words, slashed, slaughtered, eliminated forever.
What does that feel like? A bit like this: Princess Bride: To the Pain Continue reading
When I was handed back my chapter with two comments and a large smiley face on it, I realized that giving meaningful feedback on writing is a skill.
When I got serious about writing, I knew I had to surround myself with other writers if my interest was going to become anything beyond the terrible disjointed scenes floating on my computer.
You’re serious about writing too, so let’s go through the practical steps in creating your own writing group. But just in case you’re still not sure if you should do a writing group, I’ll throw out a few reasons why it would be fan-freaking-tastic idea.
I’ve heard writer’s block described or defined in a variety of ways, as well as methods of “getting over” it, so I doubt I’ll be adding much here that is new. But I’ve never been one to blindly follow advice,[1] sometimes (often) to my detriment. And the same practice applies to my writing processes.
It’s hard to write believable action when the most exciting thing you’ve done this year is spike your cat’s water bowl.
I say this because I’ve had a pretty action packed life and the action I’ve lived, I can write. One of my most infamous memories is of being attacked by gang members a couple years back. Thanks to that encounter, I can now say with confidence black eyes are not my style, a broken nose isn’t as flattering as I’d hoped, and hard as I try, I can’t rock stitches.
The Spinning Pen 