Embracing the Scary Project--Why Bravery on Demand Can Help Your Writing

Simone de Beauvoir once wrote, "Every time I start on a new book, I am a beginner again. I doubt myself, I grow discouraged, all the work accomplished in the past is as though it never was, my first drafts are so shapeless that it seems impossible to go on with the attempt at all, right up until the moment . . .when it has become impossible not to finish it."

This comes from her1965  book Force of Circumstance, which is one of many published works during her long literary career. New book writers might read this in astonishment. How come such a prolific and experienced writer had such beginner's emotions?

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Saying thanks . . .

Just wanted to say thanks for writing books that share your passion with the world.  Seems appropriate on this Thanksgiving week to post this wonderful article by Derek Sivers.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Building a Questions List to Keep Writing Fresh

This month I've taken on an insane project--which I try to do each November.  I've signed up for National Novel Writers Month, or nanowrimo as it's affectionately called by those who know and love it.  Each year, hundreds of thousands of writers from around the world log on to the www.nanowrimo.org site and commit to writing 50,000 words in 30 days.  That's about 1667 words a day, give or take a few.

Nanowrimo boasts

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Crafting an Agent-Catching Chapter One

I was given the news by the editor at my publishing company.  It was a shock, even in these shocking times in publishing.  "We only read the first two pages of chapter one," she said.  "If it doesn't grab me, it doesn't get further."

What intense pressure for writers these days!  To craft a chapter one that

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Using the Short Form to Get to the Long Form--Two Fun Excercises for Your Book This Week

A good writing friend once shared this piece of wisdom:  Sometimes we have to get small to get big, with our books.  Books span large areas of time and space, and it's easy to get lost in the expanse of them, overwhelmed with all the details.

In my writing classes, I use two fun exercises to help writers manage the immensity.  One exercise is a poem, the other is an exploration of one of your main characters, your narrator, or your potential reader, by putting them in a five-page short story. 

These two exercises are such fun, they can feel like a sidetrack away from the "real" writing.

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How to Educate Yourself about Publishing in Today's Changing Industry

Publishing is changing so fast, it's hard for writers to keep up with the shifts.  A friend sent me this wonderful article from author Steve Pressfield's site, "What It Takes," featuring publishing-savvy Shawn Coyne talking about the profit and loss analysis that publishers make before accepting a manuscript. Fascinating to hear the inside scoop.

If you're game, educate yourself this week.  Scroll down to his article, "A Matter of Infinite Hope."

Feel free post your comments and questions.

Click here.

And for an even more eye-opening article, about how Amazon.com has just started signing up writers, click here for this week's New York Times article.

Finding the Perfect Writing Notebook--and How to Use It to Finish Your Book

A good friend just recommended, and another just purchased, the most beautiful writer's notebook, so I am posting this article from two years ago about how to use them to the fullest as you create and craft your book.  If you'd like to salivate along with me, check out the Leuchtturm writing notebooks.  I'm off to order mine right now.

Writers produce writing. And if you're a writing geek like me, you love to write longhand in notebooks, not just on the super-fast computer. 

Writing notebooks let the right brain ramble slowly, and the writing I do longhand is often pensive, full of imagery. I notice things I'd breeze over.  It has a certain

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Change of Seasons--Visioning Time for Your Book?

Today it is wet outside, the start of our fall rains.  Everything looks saturated with September sun and now the moisture of this gentle rain, and it's a good day for sitting still. Something I don't do very often, but which my books crave at this time of year, as the heat of summer downshifts into colder weather.

Today I'm giving myself the gift of visioning.  Simply listening, and waiting.  Visioning brings

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What Makes a Chapter? What Makes a Scene?

A common question in my book-writing classes is the difference between chapters and scenes.  Both are pathways, bridges between one moment and the next.  But what makes a chapter work?  What makes a collection of scenes warrant it

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My Love (Hate) Affair with Storyboards

Storyboards, the visual map that filmmakers use, save my books. They are my primary pathway through my piles of material.  They are my best tool for organizing and structuring my novels, nonfiction books, and memoirs so that a reader can make sense of the story.

I love them. I couldn't make publishable books without them.

I also hate storyboards. They are like bossy mother-in-laws, telling me what I'm doing wrong. They point out exactly what I don't want to look at about my book-in-progress: where I have too much blah-blah-blah, where I've skipped a juicy opportunity for conflict, where I've stayed on track or gone on a tangent.

Essentially, it becomes clear as day where my book isn't yet working.

I teach storyboards, I have several hanging on my office walls, and I barely tolerate their linear know-it-all attitude. But I think they're gold.

The Golden Opportunity of Storyboards
A big question as you begin your book is this:  How are you going to know if your story flows when it's outside of your own inner worlds?

You can craft a draft, of course.  Get it typed out and printed, read through it.  But it's still hard to see if the idea you presented on page 31 will thread through to page 231 in a way your reader will track.

Some writers make long lists.  I do this too.  Facts to check, threads to follow.  The lists on my desk are as numerous as my printed drafts, after a while, and I start to go crazy under all that paper.  Here's where storyboards present a golden opportunity, like a good map out of a swamp.

A writer needs to know the structure of her story flow, the placement in time and space of each idea or plot point.  It's not just enough to churn out the words. The sequence matters, a sequence that readers can follow, and you need some method to clearly see sequence. Filmmakers use storyboards to provide this.

What's a storyboard look like?  Check out  this video where I demonstrate a storyboard.  

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