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Tag Archives: Writing

Buzzing in my head

I’m writing a 30,000 word wrap-up science piece these days at work. Organizing the details and shaping a coherent narrative is taking up all my writerly brainpower, so I’ve only worked on my novel 5 hours in the past 10 days. But the project should be thought-out by the end of next week. Will have [...]

Posted 09 January 2009 † nickyp § Writing ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged:

Blindsided by grammar

A recent post on edittorent ranting about the use of “then” as a conjunction woke me up this morning far better than the green tea I was drinking. Guilty, guilty, guilty. I quick-searched my first-draft WIP for “, then” (instead of “, and then”), and found 112 of them in 72,000 words. They probably aren’t all [...]

Posted 31 December 2008 † nickyp § Writing ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged: , ,

More changes

I’m dropping Nano this year. I’ve done it every year since 2000 (and won 5 times!), but this year it’s more important that I spend time editing and polishing the two manuscripts I have (in the same genre) than stopping the momentum to build another one (in a new genre). Not to mention the ten [...]

Posted 01 November 2008 † nickyp § Writing ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged:

Slight change in plans

A crisis on the home front (economic, not physical), and I’ve been distracted all week. Now only one more day before NaNoWriMo and I’m 8,000 words away from my October goal! How can I start a new story when I don’t have the base for this story done yet? Will get up early tomorrow, work [...]

Posted 30 October 2008 † nickyp § Writing ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged:

Mental distraction

Why is it that when I am rolling on one story (today the ineptly labeled “music story,” or “Olivia”), I get THE great idea for a scene for some other story? Or a completely new story falls from the sky, five times better—in the thinking—than the one I’m working on?    Guess it’s a good [...]

Posted 18 October 2008 † nickyp § Writing ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged:

The horse you came in on

What does it mean when your characters change name in mid-draft and you don’t even notice? Maybe not as fleshed-out as we thought. At least their actions aren’t interchangeable.   In today’s writing, we went a step further–a character didn’t even show up for a scene. I’d remembered the outline wrong and used a different [...]

Posted 11 October 2008 † nickyp § Writing ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged:

How many words?

Despite months of plot-work, world-building and general hubbub, I am still in the early creation part of my latest story. Because the mountain of “finished book” looks so enormous from the foothills of “scenes 1 and 2,” I play this game called How Many Words?   I or interested onlookers ask this question at the [...]

Posted 21 September 2008 † nickyp § Writing ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged:

Hearing voices

Hearing my WIP read out loud is one of the easiest ways for me to “see” what’s wrong with a scene, but I dislike reading it myself and I double-dislike forcing my friends to do it. Especially when I’m editing at 3 a.m. on a Thursday. So I am a big fan of text-to-speech software, as [...]

Posted 06 September 2008 † nickyp § Writing ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged: ,

Long live Sharpe

In the past six weeks, I’ve blown through more than 20 of the Richard Sharpe books by Bernard Cornwell (holding off on the 1820-set one to use as incentive to meet my page goals this month).  Wow. Rollicking adventure, tight serial plotting and continuing characters who grow (somewhat). I read them in historical order, marveling [...]

Posted 30 August 2008 † nickyp § Reading § Writing ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged: , , , , , , , , ,