Paperless Writing Cycle Challenge

I’ve been entertaining the idea of going paperless in my writing cycle for some time, but I love pens. Besides my love of pens, I have to admit that my favorite part of revising is all the colorful scribbles all over a printout of my work. However, I struggle with corralling all the paper of the printouts. Double-spacing a rough …

Is editing worth the price?

I keep asking myself if editing is worth the price. Other people have asked me, “Is editing worth the price?” Of course, your mileage will vary as will the cost. But, looking at this screen shot, I’m going to have to say, “Yeah. Pretty sure it was worth it.” This is a view from Microsoft Word’s “compare documents” feature. All …

How to outline a novel.

I’ve struggled with how to outline a novel for years. Today, I’m here to tell you what I’ve decided is the best method for me. Screw the novel outline! I’m not like everyone else. I’ve never felt like I fit in. I’m okay with that for the most part, until it comes to my writing process. I’ve been struggling and …

Outlining by the Seat of my Pants

For years, when I wrote my stories, I had no plan. I’d just have an idea stuck in my head, usually a character in a scene and I’d write that scene down with pen on paper. And sometime while I was writing that scene, I’d figure out what happened next. I’d continue that way until I ran out of ideas. …

How do I turn an idea into a plot?

One of my readers asked me how I turn a single idea into a plot. Rather than just spout off some quick answer, I decided it’d make a good blog post, so here goes. To clarify, Merriam-Webster defines “plot” as the plan or main story. So, the question really is how do I come up with my story? It partially …

Combining Two Rough Drafts into One Novel – Part 3

This is the last post regarding combining two rough drafts into one novel. The first one can be found here and the second, here. It’s been a heck of a struggle, but I’m happy now with what I’m considering the rough draft of Letting Go (working title). Some difficulties I ran into were: characters (names, ages, descriptions, etc.) Thankfully (?) I’m …