Index cards, tarot cards, scissors, two rolls of tape, and two plot outlines, one for reading, and one for chopping into pieces.
It’s time to fix a plot problem.
I spent a good chunk of the last two weeks fixing the antagonist of Stars Fall Out, who turned out to be a nice, optimistic guy who wants to live on a farm with his wife.
Stars Will Fall Out 100,000 times: books are not babies
How it’s taken me thirteen years to write a 100,000 word fantasy novel, and why writing a book isn’t like being pregnant.
What if her girlfriend is actually her mother?
Writing fiction requires decisions among infinite options. If any given character is replaceable by any other character, or even by wind-up automata, golems, and holograms, what is to be done?
The Quantum Nature of Blogging, Part I
I set out to troubleshoot my perfectionist blogging process and instead discovered the quantum nature of writing. While I enjoy blogging, I have difficulty posting often. My problem is that blogging is something of a …
Brainstorming Story Conflict
In my last post, I went over some of the issues with trying to plot an entire novel in an hour, when you don’t actually need to. That’s kind of a niche problem to face, …
Random Rapid Plotting
Why would I until the end of National Novel Writing Month to share a plotting exercise with you? Mostly because things happened, and I didn’t get around to it earlier. But also because there’s room …
NaNoWriMo Retrospective
This November had so many issues that if it were a person, it would be waist-deep in therapy, hopped up on dubious psych meds, and answering a lot of kind-yet-probing questions from well-meaning-yet-irritating family and …
Reach for the stars?
Setting goals always involves a strategic game of self-manipulation. This is difficult to do, since I know I’m doing it, and I can predict my every move and counter-move. I have a bad history with …