Iconoclastic Writer
John Truby’s screenwriting courses and software are a staple of screenwriting classes worldwide. His book,The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller
, presents his “Twenty-Two Building Blocks” plot structure is a classic. I purchased one of his first video writing courses mumblety-mumblety years ago when I was writing [...]
The plan was to spend January completing the first draft of a memoir and then going back to work on the NaNoWriMo novel revisions. That was the plan.
I did, however, get to work tangentially on writing. A friend asked me to be a beta reader on the first draft of her first novel. She’s [...]
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While taking a workshop with author Janice MacDonald on developing a traditional fiction story plot (the kind with a beginning, middle and end), I decided to modify one of the templates that came with my Pages program into a set of worksheets. These worksheets can help you outline your fiction plot and [...]
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I’ve seen dozens of variations on fiction writing plot development arcs through the years (and I’ll be posting at least 3). I read fiction writing books and went to classes and workshops to avoid facing the muddle that was my middle, but somehow Janice MacDonald’s version clicked. I then joined NaNoWriMo [...]
Continue Reading → Just a quick note about what’s coming now that NaNoWriMo 2007 is almost finished. (Okay, so I haven’t quite finished my novel rough draft — 4 more chapters –but I broke the 50K and have a few paragraphs roughing the last 4 chapters.)
I’ve published the first of many resource and writer’s tools postings to [...]
Continue Reading →Author Lisa Preston (http://www.lisapreston.com), spoke to The Writing Popular Fiction class of author Janice MacDonald in September, 2007. Lisa Preston does workshops. Check out her site for more information. This are some of her excellent recommendations for researching appropriate agents to query about your novel.
There are 4 requirements [...]
Continue Reading →Made it! It’s official. I got my 50,000 words (actually, 53,000+ words) at 11:35 p.m. tonight. Must now sleep.
The novel’s not quite done, but the end is in sight and I feel confident I’ll actually make it.
I’ll write more tomorrow.
Continue Reading →It’s late and I’ve got tons of writing to do tomorrow to catch up on the NaNoWriMo schedule, but I had to take the time to celebrate — 27,890 words! I’m well into Chapter 9 and I know I’ll make Chapter 10 tomorrow. That’s the big plot point 2 in standard genre fiction story arcs [...]
Continue Reading →I literally spent all day (18 hours) yesterday working on client web development projects and got no NaNoWriMo done — although I did do some plotting in my head. Do not get me started on tech support. It would be nice if just once tech support would admit there’s a genuine problem.
I made the [...]
Continue Reading →Well, no one showed up at the Itty-Bitty Buzz this morning from my region. So I NaNoWriMoed by myself for 2.5 hours. The place is now invaded by a couple of Boomer grandma’s gossiping at the tops of their lungs (you’d think they were on cell phones) about breast feeding and the inevitable conversation of [...]
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