Since small publishers don’t usually offer for your book until it’s finished, I haven’t had a deadline in years. Now, after signing with a new publisher, I have one, and I’m a little unnerved. With 17 books published, you’d think I would take this all in stride. But having a deadline (two, in fact) is…
Tag: writing process
On the Nature of Ritual
I think humans must have created ritual as soon as they started forming tribes, maybe before. We seem to do it almost without thinking. We tend to think of ritual as something involving religion. Catholic Mass. Pagans casting a circle. Celebrations of midwinter and new beginnings like birthdays and weddings. Even something as simple as…
How to Write When You’re Not Writing
For the last 12 months, I worked in a sort of creative fever on my latest novel. When I wasn’t at my day job, I was writing. When I couldn’t be writing, I was brainstorming. When I stopped writing to sleep, I felt like I was still trapped in the fictional world, not really resting…
When life hands you lemons…write them into a story
I’ve been teaching a night class at the local community college about writing fiction with the intent to someday be published. Not teaching how to write, but exposing new writers to the concepts, lessons, rules, and “secrets” that, if I’d known them 20 years ago, would have saved me hundreds of hours of editing, rewriting,…
Getting the Words to Flow
It used to be rare that I got stuck while writing a book. But lately, with my time more fragmented and no deadlines except those I impose on myself, I’ve found myself clawing my way through first drafts. To try and get the momentum going again, I’ve gone back to the techniques that served me…