There are a lot of different kinds of villains or antagonists in fiction – just as many as there are protagonists. While plot and a main character are very important, finding what the main character is working against is equally, if not more, essential to driving a plot forward. Antagonists keep the story going; they … More Writing Villains: Monsters
So you want to do NaNoWriMo, but you’re not really good at this plot thing. Maybe you’ve written short stories but not a novel, maybe you’ve always wanted to write a novel, but you don’t have any idea of how to make a plot. Maybe you’ve written or are writing your Good Novel Idea, and … More NaNoWriMo Prep: Creating A Plot in 4 Easy Steps
Goals are powerful things. And I believe they are equally powerfully misunderstood. Most of us when we think about a goal associate it with failure, with meeting with supervisors and guidance counselors, of failed weight loss attempts, massive dreams turned gripping defeats. The mere word GOAL is enough to turn the stomach of many people. … More Goals are Powerful Things
The following is an excerpt from a post I wrote back in May, 2013: Developing Characters Part One: Getting to know you Our characters are people – people we’re giving free rent to in our heads, sometimes for years. And they ought to be worth that time to create, to find the right one for the … More NaNoWriMo Prep: Creating Characters Worth Writing
I’ve had a long few weeks of writing. Working two freelance jobs, relearning how to do math for one of them, blogging every day, and generally working my writerly tail off. Every now and then, I pause in the middle of a particularly difficult sentence, paragraph, article, and with a thin thread of panic, I … More The Mind is Never Empty
I have never met an artist, musician, or writer who isn’t living their art on a daily basis. We – we artistic souls – live life in a fugue of interpretations, of seeing the layers of the world pulled apart into strands of music, words, color, expression. It never goes away. The only difference is … More Artistic License
We’re narrowing in on the last few days before National Novel Writing Month. We’ve been getting ready – reprioritizing time, deligating as much as we can, clearing out space to allow the giant wonderful mess of November to come in like a bevy of frat boys and take over our houses (and, might I add, … More NaNoWriMo Prep: 5 Rules to Boost Word Count
Hello you gorgeous people! This is my (only slightly) shameless request for your help in helping me get to The Night of Wr iting Dangerously, taking place this November 15th in San Francisco. Because I love travel and the city, I have audaciously already booked my trip there, and now all I need is assistance … More The Night of Writing Dangerously
When undertaking great tasks like writing a novel in a month, it is easy to get lost in the idea of the thing – the idea of what it takes, who we need to be to accomplish our lofty goals. Right now, I am having to remember this daily, as I move into a new … More NaNoWriMo Pep Talk: Come As You Are
So you want to do NaNoWriMo, but you’re afraid of the time commitment. Your days seem full, and even though you think you could probably squeeze in a few hours writing here and there, you’re pretty sure your willpower tricks will work, but you still have a sneaking suspicion you’re doomed to fail. It’s time … More Finding Time For NaNoWriMo: Painless Time Management
Concerning History in the Atlantic World, 1680-1740
The long haul of the spectrum
one woman's thoughts about life on the spectrum
Japanese pop culture through a feminist lens
The official blog of Michelle Tuckett, word ninja. 