I remember my early critique days. I would get all of these suggestions but I was closed off to them. I would say, "They don't understand!" or "This is the only way this story can be told!" or even "What? I'm not doing that!" It took me a while to realize that my novel is not something rigid. Novels can change. Novels are fluid. I believe in order to grow as a writer, you have to be open to the different avenues your novel can take you during the creation process. You have to be … [Read more...]
Twenty Minutes of Fame
March 17, 2010 Read Comments
As a writers with other responsibilities like a day job and/or a family, it can be really hard to find blocks of time to write. For me, it was even a challenge to find time to write this blog post since I'm in the midst of some heavy lifting at the day job with my pending software release. But you can find time to squeeze in writing -- even an hour a day -- if you break it up into twenty minute increments. And if you're really stretched thin, you can find even smaller pockets of time. So … [Read more...]
Working & Writing
September 21, 2009 Read Comments
I just finished up my lunch here at work so I thought I would blog about walking the tight-rope between working a day job and writing a novel. It's not easy, let me tell you... Right now at my day job, I'm going to have to learn a whole new skill. It's sort of complicated and will probably take me a good month or so to really understand and master it. I love learning new things --- especially technical geeky things --- but I also realize what this will mean for the next month or so: … [Read more...]
You’ve Come a LONG Way Baby
May 27, 2009 Leave a Comment
Growing up, I saw Virginia Slims commercials on TV. I can’t even fathom those commercials being on TV today. Can you imagine? Anyway, that jingle was in my head this past weekend, when during a procrastination tactic, I decided to open a file that sparked my writing journey. The file contained my first “focused” novel. I’ve written other “novels” if I can really call them that---but this was the first one I really worked on seriously. I had just graduated college and couldn’t … [Read more...]
