Musings of a Novelista

It’s that time of year again. National Novel Writing Month aka NaNoWriMo is almost here.
I’ve participated for the last two years and I have to admit I never made it to the 50K mark for either year. But I did log in to my NaNoWriMo account because I really do like getting those Pep Talk [...]

I just got out of meeting at the day job, but before I delve into all things techy geeky, I wanted to drop a quick post about some interesting articles I’ve found about YA audiences.
With the first article, I got the heads up from writer friend,Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich, author of the forthcoming, Eight Grade SuperZero (which [...]

I’m on Day 5 of my 25 scenes in 25 days. But I’ve also cut a scene. So much for my catchy phrase. I’m thinking it will be replaced but not sure. It may have to wait until the next revision round.
I also cut a character. Alexis was a character in my draft who [...]

After reading through Nathan Bransford’s finalist entries to the First Paragraph Contest, I’ve been thinking a lot of about openings.
It seems now more than ever with the tight competition, the first paragraph, the first page, and the first chapter really must get quickly to the heart of your story. Especially in YA because unlike some [...]

Okay so my co-workers were talking about this Paranormal Activity movie. A movie that I haven’t heard of (yes, I must have been under a rock). I was very intrigued by the premise—loving scary movies and ghosts and such. Plus, I read the story how the director Oren Peli only spent like $15K but so [...]