There are very few tools that a writer truly needs. A writing instrument, and her imagination. That is all. But… I hereby pledge true devotion to the writing tool known as Scrivener. I discovered Scrivener a couple of years ago, and, intrigued, bought myself the software for a low price of… well, I don’t remember now, […]
Productivity
The Finish Line: “Just Do it!”
The plan was for my novel re-write to be done by the end of June. It wasn’t. The new plan was to finish before I left on vacation this past Monday. I didn’t. To be fair, this draft was many more words than I anticipated; the original 88,000 turned into 116,000. (I’m not quite sure how that […]
July Writing Goals
So here’s something ironic: I’d planned this post for July 1, but I didn’t get it posted in time because I was… working on my July writing goals. (Actually, that’s only half true. I was also binge-reading Elin Hilderbrand’s new book The Rumor. Fantastic summer read. More on that in the July book review.) But […]
Make A Pioneer List
I recently wrote a blog post for DIY MFA on parental figures in classic children’s literature (stay tuned for my new column for DIY MFA on writing health and wellness, starting in July!). One of the characters who taught me a lot about work ethic is Ma Ingalls from the Little House books. In Little House […]
Does Passion Need A Goal?
Yesterday morning, there was a race across the Walkway over the Hudson, a beautiful pedestrian bridge not ten minutes from my house. I’d seriously considered signing up for the race earlier in the spring, but decided (rightly) that I wouldn’t have enough time to train. This morning, I went for a run. I usually go to […]
When The Writing Gets Hard
Last week on Pinterest… (doesn’t that sound like the intro for a really boring sitcom?) I read and pinned a blog post claiming to help me write 10,000 words in a single day. The author of the post made some good points, and although 10,000 is an impossible goal for someone who doesn’t write full-time (as the author […]