Hearing Voices
I’m sure you’ve all heard the advice to put your manuscript in a drawer for a few months before tackling the next revision. Getting some distance allows you to see things you otherwise can’t because you’re too close to it….
Category: Writing Advice
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…
How Nothing Helped My Writing
I have difficulty sitting, a condition I treat with an ever-present pillow and an unusual form of therapy — one I find instructive as a writer. I practice doing nothing. I was turned onto this ‘nothing’ therapy by Dr. David…
Envy and Gratitude
It’s the end of another calendar year, the time before Christmas, when people scramble to buy gifts. It’s the time when book lists appear, summarizing the best and brightest, the funniest, the biggest breakthrough titles published during the same year….
Opening Old Boxes
The end of year always puts me in the mood to clean. A new year might be an arbitrary marker of time passing, but finishing up a calendar fills me with the desire to say good-bye to some things, to…
Final Draft(s): Preparing Your Novel for Its Open House
How do you know when your novel is finished and ready to ship off to agent-land? Planning for this big move has similarities to selling a house or apartment you’ve lovingly furnished and decorated and made your own over the…