Crushed by the Crucible
So I did that thing, the very depressing one, where I pulled an old manuscript out of the files with the intention of fixing it. I was confident I knew the problem: it had to be the stakes. The reader…
Category: Novel Incubator
An Interview with Michelle Hoover, Author of Bottomland
Building on her critically acclaimed debut novel The Quickening, Michelle Hoover’s gripping, brilliantly crafted new release, Bottomland, follows the Hess family’s struggle to stay together on the Iowa plains following the mysterious disappearance of two family members during the years…
The-Getting-to-the-Ending-Brain-Hurts Rag
Rather than work on my book, I thought I’d slip in a little blog post. Anything not to write that ending! Closets need cleaning, don’t they? I think I’ll just have a snack… I’m in the last chapters of my…
Friday Feast: Good Writing Workshop Citizens, How Winds of Winter Can Be Published in Three Months, Writing Routines, Warning Labels, and Bookish Hotels
I’ve long dreamed of embarking on a small group adventure with friends to a far-flung destination. Now that I’ve learned about The Wonderland House from Book Riot, my destination plans have changed. “This huge, themed, Regency house by the seafront is spread over…
Friday Feast: Query Letters, Kindness and Conventions, Pop Culture References, Racial Invisibility and Erasure in the Writing Workshop, and the Value of Not Writing
How do you write an amazing query letter? With pizza, alcohol, and friends, of course! At least that was our hope at last night’s “Query-a-Thon,” where a group of Novel Incubator alumni and current students convened to tackle that first hurdle on…
Friday Feast: To Motivate and To Finish
Earlier this week, I yelled out loud to my empty living room, “I hate everything that I’ve written!” Yesterday, I broke out some junior high dance moves to celebrate the completion of another first (shitty) draft. Such is the up-down life of…