Shape Your Dreams
Week two brings with it the first realizations that what you are doing is hard. It also brings with it the realization that you can do this. There are moments when everything feels right and the words dump right out 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… →
It sits before you, daring you to move forward. An endless expanse of white, an unknown and unexplored conduit for your imagination. The blank page is often one of the most intimidating things an artist can face. Nothingness. The void, waiting to be formed and shaped. An empty canvas waiting to carry your art to others. The intimidation of the blank page does not come… →
In five days, people just like you and me will crack open their laptops and binders and will begin writing their next novel. Yes, we have less than five days before NaNoWriMo officially kicks off! For some of you that date can’t come soon enough, others are pulling out your hair in despair. Regardless, it is never too late to start writing your next great novel.… →
The countdown has begun! Are you ready for action? Ready to make a commitment to finally writing that novel of yours? Are you ready to accomplish your dreams? November kicks off National Novel Writing Month and it is the perfect opportunity for new and old writers alike to stop thinking about their novels and put their ideas on paper. Some of you may be asking, “What is… →
November has come and gone leaving us to count our words and tally our word counts. On December first hundreds of writers stepped outside and took their first breaths of fresh air in thirty days. We have sacrificed mornings and nights squirreled away with our notepads and laptops. Our fingers have blazed new trails as they desperately tried to keep pace with our imaginations. With… →
Every one of us starts NaNoWriMo the same, with an idea, a blank page and endless possibilities. It is something that is true of all of us no matter how many times we have attempted to run this race. The endless possibilities of an idea are exciting and one of the things I love the most about writing. I think everyone has seen images of… →
During NaNoWriMo there is one thing we all have in common. It doesn’t matter how many books you have published. It doesn’t matter how many times you have attempted NaNoWriMo. Once November starts we are up against the clock! Every word counts and momentum is everything. In light of this I wanted to share some thoughts on keeping your momentum so you can hit your… →
This is it! The moment we’ve been waiting for! You’ve heard me mention NaNoWriMo every week now for the past month and it is finally here! What is this NaNoWriMo thing? I am glad you asked! November is National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo for short. So guess what it’s about? Yep! Writing your next great novel! NaNoWriMo has a simple goal: write 50,000 words… →
What is a plot? Plot is what actually happens in your story. This seems simple enough, most of us have a series of events that we want to portray through our stories. We have a narrative we want to express and to share with others. However, we must be careful how we go about showing that narrative because plot is one of the easiest ways to ruin a novel.
So last week I mentioned that we should develop our settings as if we were developing our characters. I am sure some of you asked “Well how do I develop a good character?” Well I am glad you asked, lets try and answer that shall we! To write good characters your have to know what they are composed of. Most of our literary heroes are brave, selfless, good with a sword, trustworthy and graceful, others heroes tend to be exact opposites of these. A good character is a very subjective thing, ask a table of ten writers who their favorite literary protagonists are and you will get ten different responses. This is because a good character is as complex as anyone you might meet on the street one day. There is no set of attributes that will automatically make your hero come alive. There is no magic formula for making perfect characters.