Take a Deep Breath . . . Now Hit “Send”
Friday, October 7th, 2011
Posting today at the Pop Culture Divas.
You know when you’re ready.
Archive for the ‘Writing’ Category
Better Characterization through Personal Hygiene
Saturday, November 5th, 2011
The fancy manicure, twenty minutes in
I’ve been shredding my nails and it’s time to stop. One thing and another, I decided to glue on fake nails–give me some time to get out of the habit of picking at them and give my fingers a chance to heal.
It’s jarring catching a glimpse of this foreignness at the ends of my hands. I can’t pick at my fingertips any longer–but neither can I smear on lotion (it gets gunked under the long nail tips), open soda cans, or let my hands soak in water (the glue isn’t that great). (more…)
Harvest
Tuesday, September 27th, 2011
Lately when we pick up our CSA veggies, my thoughts turn to soups and preserves and things we can freeze. We’ll still be able to get local vegetables into November, but there’s a chill in the air and the Tupperware drawer is full; I dump out the week’s haul and think, “What here do I want to be eating in three months?”
This week I drafted my kids as sous-chefs. They chopped most of the ingredients for big batches of potato soup and gumbo. They won’t eat the gumbo, probably, so I pour that into cup-and-a-half-sized containers so I can thaw out single servings for my lunch. Most of the potato soup we ate in one sitting—soccer practice takes it out of you, and they didn’t know I’d subbed cauliflower for some of the potatoes.
Last week the farm had a glut of cucumbers, so we made refrigerator pickles. Like the soups, I’m long past using a recipe. I put the ingredients into the pot in patches so I can see the ratios and what I’ve already added. I’ve learned to pour spices into my hand first just in case the lid is loose, and that way get the desired amount into the pot. (more…)
Script Frenzy Mood Map
Monday, May 2nd, 2011
I like keeping track of word count to help me learn about my work habits—what works, what stressors take their toll, what’s really happening versus what I think is happening. NaNoWriMo and Script Frenzy have a widget that graphs your daily word count or page count, and I added some notes about what was going on away from the keyboard.
(click the image to make it bigger)
Now that I’ve done more than one of these power-through, get-the-draft-down challenges, I think I can say this about my writing process: (more…)
Reading Aloud versus Acting It Out
Monday, April 4th, 2011
Some complaining a few weeks ago on Twitter has turned into more thought about books, audiobooks, and screenplays over at the Pop Culture Divas. Check it out! You can comment about your favorite format, and cheer me on in my Script Frenzy project.
Chess
Thursday, February 24th, 2011
In A Novel in a Year, Louise Doughty alternates exercises with discussion. The first exercise is to finish the following sentence: “The day after my eighth birthday….” It’s an interesting launch: can you differentiate your childhood birthdays? What would happen that you would remember the day after, not the day?
The day after my eighth birthday, my father told me that his brother had also been a chess player. My father had started teaching me at five: we had a set of pieces that looked like medieval soldiers, not abstract blocks, and my brother and I played with them like dolls before he decided to show me the game. He handicapped his side of the board, starting with mostly pawns and slowly adding back bishops, rook, and queen, to show me beginnings and endgames. (more…)
Staggering Over the Finish Line
Tuesday, November 30th, 2010
Next I'm going to read a library book
During the last week of writing, I felt like this book was one of those oeuvres that one shoves under the bed, never to be unboxed again. I know it’s typical to feel like a draft is bad, so I’m not deleting it or anything radical, but I slogged forward only because I was getting close. I was challenging myself to develop endurance and refuse to give up, not because I felt like I was having any breakthroughs as a writer.
But in the last couple of days . . . I figured out who did it. I remembered some loose ends. I got some good sentences and nice connections. And how much is a lot of writing to do in a day? Pfft, I’m finished with the first 400 words before the coffee pot has finished perking. What a habit to carry forward! (more…)
Are We There Yet?
Sunday, November 21st, 2010
I’m at the stage of the game where I have to work to think positively, which I have to do to keep working. I could be cleaning the house for our pre-Thanksgiving pie smorgasbord! I could be reading overdue library books! Instead I will keep typing.
One positive bit is the continued learning experience and comes with sticking with it. I’m discovering that perhaps the end of the first quarter of any story is hard for me, not just this point in this particular one. The end of the first quarter is the point after I’ve introduced the characters and set up the situation; now they’re dealing with the tests of the plot and so am I.
Another experience I will now generalize is that some of my outline problems I’m just not going to figure out until I start writing—I won’t see that they’re there at all, let alone how to fix them. Something about being in the thick of things is when I can see it’s not going to work. It’s easy to feel virtuous about a method—some way of preparing and researching and proceeding—and end up not doing much writing. (more…)
A Little Less Conversation
Thursday, November 18th, 2010
No time to chat, but do boogie along:
A little more action:
A Note to Our Sponsors
Monday, November 15th, 2010
We need a quick inspirational word with Yolanda, to remind her which subgenre we’re working in:
Maybe a scene in a graveyard . . .
