Being a member of a good critique group is like gold for up and coming writers. I am blessed with a great group of talented and insightful people who help me see problems or even places in my story or writing that I can do better. They push me to be the best I can…
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I don’t know if it’s the summer heat, the late nights or the extra day-job hours I worked last week, but getting up early to write just wasn’t happening. I resolve to do better this week, and started off with getting up at 6:30 this morning to get a bunch done. It feels good. But,…
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Literary agent Nathan Bransford put up a post last week posing a hypothetical question (click here for the post): If someone could tell you the future, would you want to know if you will be published, and if you found out you wouldn’t, would you still write? The post got a lot of people talking,…
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When I was writing my middle-grade novel, I didn’t pay much attention to page counts and chapter length. Mainly, chapters were broken up by scenes. But during my hiatus — after getting to The End — I finished reading “Barkbelly” by Cat Weatherill and was amazed at how short her chapters were and how…
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At my critique group a couple of weeks ago, someone asked me what I wanted to achieve in my revision of my middle-grade novel, if I had specific things I knew I wanted to do. During my break, I had thought about this a lot — anxious to start working on the novel again…
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Writer’s Digest’s Maria Schneider put up an informative post the other day about things she heard at when she accompanied the magazine’s contest winners on their New York agent meets (lucky them). I won’t plagarize her information here, but one caught my eye for further review: The elevator pitch, be able to sum up your…
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I’m back on the novel. Last week was still really busy, but I jumped into the rewrite of my novel anyway. Time to start waking up at 6 am again! New goal: Finish the rewrite by November. I’ve also made strides with the Sir Newton Color Me Florida book. Drawings are completed and fixed…
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One of the best pieces of writing advice I have heard was to find the 10th way of doing things. It was in a screenwriting seminar, and I apologize to the wise man who said this, because I can’t remember who it was. Let’s call him Will (after Shakespeare, who no doubt used this rule whether he knew…
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Another blog has written a great review for Sir Newton’s Color Me Hawai’i. Keiki Gift Ideas, a blog offering up ideas for children’s gifts, posted a nice review, and the writer gave the book to her friend, who also wrote up a review. Bonus, two for one! Click here to see the reviews. But one…
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I did it. I typed those two words. Yesterday I wrote three pages in the final chapter and today I wrote the last three pages of the final chapter and the one-page epilogue. Done. The End. Goal accomplished: First draft completed by the end of June. Of course, it’s still early in June. But I…
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