Hello all my fantastic, adorable, wonderful readers. I am in an amazing mood because my group writer blog THE WRITER DIARIES has gone live today!
Yep yep – so go on over the The Writer Diaries and say hi!! We have a lot planned for this year and some exciting surprises. Look around, check out the contributors’ bios, and see the first Song for a Scene post! Our schedule for the future is going to look something like this: Continue reading
So I have joined up with my friend Vikki over at VikLit where she has started an awesome blog hop! Every Friday, we hop around to everyone’s blog. They should have posted an accomplishment for the week and our job is to go around and congratulate / celebrate with them!
Positive energy creates only more positive energy so let’s blow up the blogosphere with it!
For my positive accomplishment this week: I reached 35,000 words in my first draft of THE BEHOLDER. I am 5,000 away from 40K! I still feel like I am so far from the end, but I just keep putting more and more words down and, eventually, I will look at the screen and realize I am done! Right??? I mean that has to eventually happen at some point.
So YAY me! Now hop around to the other blogs and tell them congrats! See the link below to view the other blogs or sign up yourself!
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I have learned a very important lesson this past week while I was pursuing an idea that had been floating around in my head for awhile. I had this idea where I asked the few writers that I have met through Twitter, forums, CP exchanges, etc. if they wanted to start a group writing blog with me. I know that I already pretty much document my every move of this writing journey on my own blog here but I had this itch to share it with others, to work alongside my fellow aspiring writers and learn more about it than I could from just pondering things over by myself.
To my surprise, the idea spread like wildfire and I got 11 other writers involved on this project with me. Continue reading
No, I don’t mean literally YOUR manuscript. I mean when you are steadily working along on that WIP that is going to be your ticket into the publishing world, the idea that your new-found agent is going to swoon over for years. The “THIS IS THE ONE” one!
And then…you see a new book come out and you start to read the description and you think, hey wait a minute, that sounds awfully familiar! Continue reading
I have a dream. I dream that one day people will be making their Debut Author to-read lists and MY book will be on them! Until then, I must support my fellow writers who have finally made it to the brink of their dreams and cannot wait for release dates to arrive this year.
Over at The Hobbitsies Book Blog, they are doing a 2013 Debut Writers Challenge, asking people to support and read at least 12 debut author books this year. I went through the list and there were so many goodies to choose from! Alas, I picked my 12 and have displayed them below for your viewing pleasure (because awesome book covers are one of my favorite things!) **Hint, click on the book cover to read the summary on Goodreads! Continue reading
I have heard from many aspiring authors and actual published authors (even some best-selling ones) who swear to using Scrivener while writing their novels. I have been using the trial version but I had a big decision to make as it was running out. To Scrivener or not to Scrivener? That was the question. Continue reading
Wow, this was a big one. And hard earned at that.
I honestly didn’t think I would make it. Well, let me rephrase…I set a deadline for myself and spent all day on the deadline date working towards this word count. I didn’t think I would reach it but in a last spurt of writing inspiration, I chugged on past my 30,000 word goal. And then Downton Abbey was on and so it was a whirl of celebrating in an English accent. Continue reading
Let me start off by saying this: If you are in the murky depths of about 20,000 words or so on your novel and are kind of lost between the middle and the end, then this post is for YOU. If you missed Part 1 on this subject, no worries! You can find it here! Start there and then come back and rejoin us here on Part 2.
Waiting….
Okay, you back? Here we go! Continue reading
I have never been a big believer of writing New Year’s resolutions, mainly because I know that I am made up of 10% ambition and 90% lazy. Well, at least when it comes to things unrelated to writing. You know the “I’m going to work out and eat better this year.” Yes, I would love for that to be actually plausible but let’s face it. I hate working out and I love to eat food that isn’t green. It is true that I will still probably subject myself to the treadmill and “salad only” phases throughout the year but I can promise you that it will not be consistent and it will not be fun.
I have never made a writerly resolution list though, and I think that making one and trying to follow it actually will be fun. Of course, there will still be times when I want to throw my WIP across the room and then set it on fire while my three cats pee on it simultaneously…but, I digress. The overall fun-ness level should stay relatively high.
Here are the resolutions I came up with this year for 2013 as it concerns my writing goals. I have first listed the goal and then in parenthesis the “ambitious” version of the goal. Really, the ambitious version is my actual goal but, as I said before, when you realize that you are made up of 90% lazy, you have to make yourself feel good when you exceed expectations. If I reach some of my “ambitious” versions of my goals, I will be thoroughly impressed and may reward myself with a cookie…or ten. Continue reading
I have read enough books on the craft of writing to know that building tension is everything to a story. The reader has to feel it growing so it pushes them farther into the story and makes his or her desire to know what is going to happen so unbearable that it is a race towards the end. When I started writing The Beholder, I definitely had a few ideas on what “bricks” I was going to use to build up the tension in order to make the climax the highest point it could be. Think of your plot as a huge mountain and the more tension you stack onto it the higher your climax point. The higher the reader has to climb to get to the climax, the more exciting the view will be from the top when they reach it.
After reaching the 20,000 mark (click here to relive my virtual happy dance about that milestone), this is a good time to reflect back on what those tension building blocks are going to be. There should be new ones to add, old ones to revise, and even ones to maybe throw out, depending on how your story has changed in this initial phase. I also think the 20,000 mark is a good place to do this because, at least for me, this is where I have already done some major writing at the front and back of my story, but the middle is kind of hanging them all murky and evasive-like. I need to know more about what I am building up to in order to connect my super hooky beginning with my star-studded ending. Without realizing it, I created a “building up” exercise that I think will come in handy for any future novel I write. Here is what you do:
J.A. Ward Writes 