Shape Your Dreams
This is it! The start of our last full week of NaNoWriMo! By now we have overcome so much, and many of you will be approaching 40,00 words soon which means we are in the final stretch! It might be tempting to think that we are entering calm waters, that we have made it to the easy part! Nothing could be further from the truth!… →
We are officially halfway through November which means we are halfway through NaNoWriMo! Many of you should be nearing 25,005 words! Some of you though may be struggling and that is perfectly fine! I have three tips for those who are having a hard time right now. If you are behind on your word count, unable to make headway, or just feel like this isn’t… →
November is National Novel Writing Month! To celebrate and encourage you to join me in the race to 50,000 words the DreamAnvil will be posting on Sunday for the next four weeks! Get out there and write those novels! With the coming week, many of you may be wondering why I tricked you into doing this thing! WriMo is a challenge, it’s not a walk… →
November is National Novel Writing Month! To celebrate and encourage you to join me in the race to 50,000 words, the DreamAnvil will be posting on Sunday for the next four weeks! Get out there and write those novels! This is it! The moment we have been waiting for, the month I have been preparing you all for. Today a million story ideas will be… →
I have spent the past month giving you a peek inside my thoughts around how I like to approach my writing process. The way I build characters, the way I build my worlds, and how I piece together my plot are all rooted in the same processes, looking back at what built them and what they are trying to become. Your characters, your world, and… →
It is a question as old as writing and storytelling itself. What is more important? Good characters or a good plot? What matters? I have asked myself this same question since my very first forays into creative writing. Do I spend time making a compelling drama or should I invest in interesting characters? How about a really interesting world? Where does that fit in? If… →
Story when broken down into its very essence is escapism. We use story to leave our own circumstances, our own plane of reality so that we might visit another. Even if it is just for a fleeting moment, story takes us to places not our own. For some writers, the reality around them is a backdrop, a canvas upon which they place their characters. They… →
Before I have a story to write, I have a main character. Usually not anything solid, just a few details, a rough sketch of who they are. A female. A mercenary. A woman far from home. Sometimes I even have a name but usually, this is one of the final bits to come into place. Why? Because a character is not just a name, a… →
The air is turning cooler, the days grow shorter, as the fall season settles in around us. After the year that we are all experiencing it can seem like the day’s drone on, stretching into months, weeks feel like years, months like eons. This month will be a little different though. For many writers, October is the preface to a season of writing like few… →
Right now you may have realized that what you are doing this month is hard. It also brings with it the realization that you CAN do this. There are moments when everything feels right and the words flow onto the page. Then there are days that you can hardly muster more than a few paragraphs. This is where the road starts to get bumpy. This… →