It hasn’t been the best year in my life. It hasn’t been the worst, either. I wrecked four first drafts of my Ohio Series (books two through five) by exuberatant pantsing. After a longish Think Week and some time spent away from fiction writing and away from deadlines, I’m rested and ready to go through… Continue reading Last day of the year… and about ready to get back to work
Category: Articles on Writing
In spite of a bit of uphill-ery, I got there. 1281 words, 62,753 total
And I managed along the way to muddy my feet on Vikings, evolutionary biology, predator psychology, and something that looks like next Monday it could traipse into the realm of the steamy near-miss. I also had a lot of wicked fun, got in a couple of funny one-liners, and at the end of the day… Continue reading In spite of a bit of uphill-ery, I got there. 1281 words, 62,753 total
Writer-Related Stuff… The Thursday List, and why it’s on hold.
I was building a really nice writing-tips email list for my writers. Every Thursday, (or mostly every Thursday), I was creating one new writing tip, answering a writer’s question, demonstrating a quick version of some technique I’ve found helpful… And then the HollysWritingClasses.com class software died. Hard. And we spent six months installing new software,… Continue reading Writer-Related Stuff… The Thursday List, and why it’s on hold.
Oh, such wicked fun today! 1257 words, and 44,099 total.
I have only the vaguest idea of where the story is going right now. I’m a long way off of the planned outline, writing into the dark, following the conflict, and asking always, “What could go wrong?” “What could go wrong?” is the right question for this section, for this book, for the aftermath of… Continue reading Oh, such wicked fun today! 1257 words, and 44,099 total.
Desktop Curtain, from Many Tricks: My single favorite Mac app
Big fan that I am of GSD (getting shit done), I’ve found things over the years that have made GSD easier. The screenshots below are Before and After on a TINY section of my very large desktop this morning. The white bar on the left isn’t neatness. It’s Scrivener below a 30-word PACTS Sentence that… Continue reading Desktop Curtain, from Many Tricks: My single favorite Mac app
Words went well, bad things happened…
And once again, I loved what I got. My poor, poor characters… And I got 1351 words, and am now at 68,056 — and the villains in town have just done something really interesting, and my MC just got to see the first tip of a brand new iceberg… But I now have to go… Continue reading Words went well, bad things happened…
Today — the tedium of drudge work
I had to move all the line-for-scene Sentences for books four and five into their Scrivener sections — the pre-built thirty-chapter manuscripts I set up for all five books when I started this project. So now the books are outlined, the manuscripts are ready to go… And Monday I’ll get back to the words. It… Continue reading Today — the tedium of drudge work
Today I studied the map, asked WHY… made good progress on OUTLINE 5… figured out why YESTERDAY crashed…
Can’t say today was easy. I walked in circles (literally) because pacing helps me generate ideas, talked to myself out loud to ask important questions, looked at my map and drew a few circles on it to identify story issues… And then I went back to the line-for-scene outline and managed to come up with… Continue reading Today I studied the map, asked WHY… made good progress on OUTLINE 5… figured out why YESTERDAY crashed…
Down into the DEEP dark… Outline 4 completely redone.
After the weekend break, I came in this morning to a blank outline for Ohio 4, and no idea what was going to go in there… except that it had to be big. I suspect, however, that while I was playing a lot of No Man’s Sky and having fun in my new solar system with… Continue reading Down into the DEEP dark… Outline 4 completely redone.
Business Only day: No words, no progress…
Today turned, though no fault of its own, into a necessary business day. Writing fiction is a business… but so is life. And from time to time, the ‘life’ stuff has to come first. And I’d let a lot of that pile up, and when you do that, you then have to deal with the… Continue reading Business Only day: No words, no progress…
