(Image credit: Imagebase.net) For most of my life- a few years excepted- Sundays have been plagued with a gnawing sense of dread. Monday’s coming. Back to school or work. Assignments I don’t want to do, meetings to slog through, people I don’t want to deal with. No matter how sunny the weather or what fun activities are planned for the day, I never fully relax with Monday sitting right there, ready to swallow me up in another week. I feel…
(Image credit: imagebase.net) A writer logs a huge portion of his or her life at desk, computer, and notebook. Everyone dreams about stories, but only by spending months grinding through sentence after sentence, thinking and rethinking, obsessing, anguishing, tearing down and throwing up, does a story or a book actually come into existence. We’re all too aware of those who dream, but never put in the effort. We’re all too aware of the games procrastination plays with us. When we…
I haven’t seen the Nickelodeon show in decades, but hunting up these clips on Youtube makes me feel like I never stopped watching. It was a pleasant surprise to collide with an experiment that shows how important it is to slow down when proofreading! I’ll let Mr. Wizard and his assistant give you some other good tips. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIWib5G-_lU Any proofreading tips you’d like to add? Share in the comments!
Pictured: my job as a business analyst. I’ve learned editing is a cycle of dashed hopes. “This next chapter won’t need much work at all- hooray!” Then I reread it, and uh-oh! Spider-sense tingling. A character acted dumb for the sake of plot, or something I thought would be good feels awkward. I always trust my niggling bad feelings. Time to reassess and rewrite. Again. Reluctance and dread soon pale against an escalating panic. What do I change? How? Is…
Last week, I wrote about giving the best feedback possible. Now it’s time to discuss receiving great feedback. No, this isn’t about everyone kissing your butt! It’s about putting aside your ego and lovingly beating the crap out of your work until it’s better than you ever imagined. Some of this advice complements ideas from the last post, but as a writer soliciting feedback, your job is more involved. Not only do you have to gather it, you also have…
(Image credit: texturezoom.com) Beta-reading not only provides an opportunity to help others, but also exercises your creative muscle, which aids you in your own writing. It’s a true honor and privilege whenever you’re asked to be a beta-reader. It’s even better to be a trusted beta-reader, someone whose opinion others repeatedly rely on when developing their ideas. Here are some tips for giving the best feedback possible: Be Honest. This, first and foremost. Don’t have the time to devote to…
If not, at least the rest of us will get a good laugh out of it! I don’t have to tell you the importance of good dialogue. People quote memorable lines from all sorts of works, all the time. They’re assimilated into our culture, and live on well after the writer him- or herself. You know what else we quote, though? Memorably bad lines. So let’s make sure your dialogue stays in the “good” category, shall we? Lots of things…
The ultimate battle in all of Battledom has already been written, filmed, and scored. Music is another huge component of my writing process. It helps me buckle down and focus in a way nothing else can (aside from wondrous, blessed coffee). Everything I listen to in this manner is instrumental- I find lyrics distracting- but there’s a wide variety of styles I like for different moods, pacing, etc. Today, I’ll share some songs from my “fight” playlist- stuff that gets…
I’m in the throes of heavy editing at present, still trying to hammer out a process that works best for me. If there’s one thing I’ve learned thus far, it’s that even after you think you’ve gotten your prose as pretty as it can possibly be, there’s something wicked lurking in there to which you’re completely oblivious. One example is unintentional repetition of certain words and sentence structures. I didn’t know it until recently, but I abuse the hell out…
Ah, the unearthly blue lakes of the Swiss Alps. What a great setting to include in your story! Problem is, how do you describe it in words and achieve the same breathtaking effect? Trick question. You shouldn’t be describing anything. Your point-of-view character, or your narrator, communicates with the reader. The first step toward good imagery is describing the scene the way s/he would describe it. This is invaluable early in the story for establishing the world and revealing insight…