by Glynn Young @gyoung9751 It’s been more than two years since the writing began. It’s been more than four since the research started. A little over a month ago, on Jan. 16, I wrote this in my writing journal: “Reached 87,758 words. First draft completed.” Five days later, I wrote “First reread / editing completed.” It was there I stopped, …
How a Troublesome Manuscript Was Saved
by Glynn Young Hold on to those unfinished or problematic manuscripts. You never know when they’re due for a rebirth. You pour everything into creating a manuscript. You type “The End.” You smile and give yourself a well-deserved pat on the back. It’s done. You finished it. You set it aside for a few days, and then you reread it. …
The Worst Part of Writing
By Rachel Hauck Yesterday, when I turned in a line edit for The Best Summer of Our Lives, my upcoming 2023 release, I wrote my editor a short note. “These girls and I need a break from each another.” Through fast draft and first edits, I thought this book might be one of the best I’d ever written. But by …
Resurrecting your Manuscript: Rewrite, Repurpose … but Regardless, Give Grace
By Lana Christian Most, if not all, authors have at least one manuscript buried in a drawer. Maybe it was the first book you wrote. Secretly, you kept rooting for that underdog, hoping it would see the light of day. Maybe it can. The biblical story of Samson brims with lessons about giftedness, redemption, second chances, and the fact that …
Don’t be afraid to smash your story
by Bettie Boswell Jeremiah 18:4 “ And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.”(KJV) Sometimes writing can be like creating something beautiful out of a muddy and unco-operative piece of clay. I first experienced natural clay on …
Do your characters talk to you?
By Glynn Young The news report made quite a splash. Researchers at Durham University in the U.K. teamed up with The Guardian newspaper and the Edinburgh Book Festival to do a study of authors. And the study reported that two-thirds of authors hear their characters speak while they’re writing. My first thought was, this is news? The study was more …
Always Too Many Words
by Ann H. Gabhart Have you ever been asked to condense a novel you have written down into one sentence? Perhaps fifteen to twenty words? You are talking about a story that perhaps took you one hundred thousand plus words to tell and now somebody wants you to give them a one sentence description?? Impossible, you say. I am there …
Those Important First Pages
by Jamie Chavez Sometimes you set out to do a thing for one reason only to find it was so much more than you ever imagined. More than you could have actually planned. In this case, I learned just how much value can be wrung out of focusing on the first chapter and how it relates to the rest of …
The Twelve Days of Revisions
by Tammie Fickas Since the conference is just around the corner, I thought we should all get in the spirit with a rousing round of conference carols. What? You’ve never sang conference carols before. Well, that’s okay because I can help with that. Here’s one for you to practice with. The Twelve Days of Revision* On the first day of …
It’s a Conundrum
By Ane Mulligan In this world, there are problems and there are conundrums. They do differ. Problems are your ordinary, garden-variety bugaboos. A pro-blum or a pro-blem, depending on where you live. Either way, whether a hitch, snag, or quandary, they all differ from a conundrum. co·nun·drum [kuh–nuhn-druhm] noun a riddle, the answer to which involves a pun or play on …