Feeling stuck? Need some inspiration? Check out a nearly 400-year-old artist's statement by Japanese haiku master Matsuo Bashō and some reflections on how uplifting his thoughts and words are.
Category: writing life
Pitching a Novel in a Tweet? What is this, the technological dystopian future?
On January 30, 2020, I participated in my very first Twitter pitching event. And girl, do I have some THOUGHTS. But first, maybe some definition of terms. I know not all of the people who read this blog are writers, and y'all might be thinking, what the heck is pitching? When writers write a story,… Continue reading Pitching a Novel in a Tweet? What is this, the technological dystopian future?
What I Learned from My First NaNoWriMo
November is gone. I have to take a moment, to lift my head from the laptop, to let my eyes adjust to the sunlight, to start breathing again. 50,011 words. National Novel Writing Month is over. I did it. None of it feels real. I wonder if this has to do with John Gardner's idea… Continue reading What I Learned from My First NaNoWriMo
NaNoWriMo 2019: Week 4 Update
can't talk right now got to write 5,653 words in three days or less with a national holiday in the middle whose idea was it to do this in November my god happy thanksgiving i guess and see you on the other side unless i write myself to death which is possible given i'm feeling… Continue reading NaNoWriMo 2019: Week 4 Update
NaNoWriMo 2019: Week 3 or Oops, I Forgot to Write a Blog Post
Just looked at today's date and realized it's the end of NaNo Week 3. No blog post update drafted. Aaaaand that's how my week three is going, folks. I'm solidly beyond the "beginning" parts of the book, into what might tentatively be called the "middle." For me, writing the middle is more than a little… Continue reading NaNoWriMo 2019: Week 3 or Oops, I Forgot to Write a Blog Post
NaNoWriMo 2019: Week 2
Popping my head up from the word-count trenches to give a quick, week-two update... (Here are my two previous posts about my NaNo foray if you're interested: my commitment to actually participate, and my week 1 update.) Definitely some rough days where my mental/creative energy output wasn't sufficient to hit that magic number (1,667 words). I gave… Continue reading NaNoWriMo 2019: Week 2
NaNoWriMo 2019: Week 1
Thought I'd write a quick update for you all about how things on my first official National Novel Writing Month outing are going. The short, optimistic answer is: Good! The short, realistic answer is: Different than I expected! In a previous post, I talked about my strategy heading into this month of insane output. It… Continue reading NaNoWriMo 2019: Week 1
NaNoWriMo What Now?
I'm going to try NaNoWriMo this year. That sentence is terrifying. Well, not if you don't know what the abbreviation stands for. It's National Novel Writing Month, which is November 1-30 every year. Basically, a bunch of psychos try to write 50,000-word novel drafts in a month. There's a little more nuance than that. But… Continue reading NaNoWriMo What Now?
Writing Contest News…
Got a little good news RE: the novel I've been working on. If that's interesting to you, awesome, and if not, no harm no foul. Ignore, click away, and good juju to you. Back in May, I entered my post-apocalyptic novel in the Colorado Gold Writing Contest. It's a novel-writing contest for unpublished writers that includes… Continue reading Writing Contest News…
Scarcity Mindset and the Writing Life
I've been thinking about scarcity mindset and abundance mindset lately. Generally, as in this NPR interview, they are applied to the way people spend their money or use their resources. Stephen Covey (the man who coined the terms) applied them to the ways people do business. I think there is an application for writers. But first,… Continue reading Scarcity Mindset and the Writing Life
