I’m happy I finished writing my novel. I really am. But the end of writing meant the beginning of the next part of the process: querying agents. Querying can be… unpleasant. Oh, the actual searching for agents, fine-tuning emails and sending pages is not so bad. But after that comes the waiting. The staring at […]
Craft
Finding the Heart
At the close of the writer’s retreat I attended recently, the moderators asked us to look back over our weekend’s work and consider which pieces worked best, and why. I jotted down a few words that described my favorite essays: “family” “relationships” and “love.” Then, reconsidering, I drew a big circle around the word “love,” because […]
The Write and the Re-Write, Part 2
Continued from Part 1… After receiving much helpful feedback on my novel from agents, I had many questions to consider: Should I keep querying and hope another agent would accept the original manuscript? Or should I do an extensive edit? If I were to edit, how much would I change? Which of the agents’ suggestions […]
The Write and the Re-Write, Part 1
In my very first fiction writing class, my teacher mentioned an author he knew who would write an entire first draft of a novel, then erase it- literally delete it from his computer– and start his re-write from scratch. My fellow students and I were appalled. I couldn’t imagine doing all that work and then […]
The First Sentence Always Sucks
The first sentence sucks. Sometimes you find one that’s brilliant, and you write it down with excitement… but then you realize you have no idea what comes next. (Many a blog post has been abandoned for that reason.) More often, you have an idea for a piece and maybe a rough thesis statement, but you don’t […]
Give Your Characters A Personality Test
When you want to get to know someone, what do you do? Spend time with that person and ask questions, right? You find out what she likes to eat for breakfast, what makes him mad, and what makes her laugh out loud. You work from the outside in, gaining insight into his true self as you go along. […]