#PitMad? No Problem! The Ultimate Guide to Creating the Perfect Pitch
Now that most agents have re-opened to queries, and #PitMad is in full swing, it’s time to talk about the right way to prepare your pitch to sell your book. In this March series, I’ll be focused on selling your novel or memoir, because selling other kinds of nonfiction requires a different process. However, in terms of selling your book, memoir works more like fiction, so we can treat them together.
February Book Roundup
I read 6 books this month, surprising even me (and I’m in the middle of 2 more, but won’t finish them until March). I am getting quite a bit more reading done by adding a 10-20 minute reading time in the morning. Not that number of books is the goal, but it does mean that if I don’t get time to read later, at least I’ve done a little bit for the day.
To Know Your Main Character Better, Create a Vision Board
But, you might say, I’m a WRITER. I paint with words. Words are my jam. Text is my Queen. What is this vision board thing anyway, and how can it help me?
Why Should I Care? How to Build a Character Readers Root For
In my last blog post, I talked about doing writing (and other) Challenges and how they can be good for us, sparking motivation to achieve our goals. (I am, by the way, still going strong on my Challenges I described – yaay me!). In order to succeed at a daunting Challenge we have to have a powerful desire behind it. If the goal is to write for 100 days straight, or train for a marathon, there must be a why behind it. And the why has to be compelling enough for us to keep going, even when we’d rather sleep in, or binge-watch a series on Netflix.
But what about our fictional characters?
Feeling Stuck or Bored? Take On a New Challenge
It’s snowy/sleety/icy here today. I spent an hour and a half shoveling slush from my walks and driveway (bonus: I got a killer workout). The groundhog has officially declared six more weeks of winter. (I live in New England, where we realistically have more like 8-10 more weeks of winter. Not that I’m counting.) We’re in that long dreary pre-spring time where nothing much seems to be happening, which is especially true in this ongoing pandemic.
Thus, it is the perfect time to start a new Challenge.
January Book Roundup
After doing my “Best of 2020” book lists, I realized it might be interesting to write more often about what I’m reading as I go, rather than doing one big list. My goal this year is to read 52 books, which means one per week. So far I’m on track. This way, too, you won’t get just “the best of” but my thoughts on whatever books I happen to read. Often I’m reading as a writer, particularly in fiction, so hopefully that will be useful to you as well.
Want to Improve Your Writing? Change Your Mindset
In the last post I talked about identity, imposter syndrome, and the importance of identifying yourself as a Writer. Today I want to talk more about mindset, and how to utilize it to achieve your creative goals.
Imposter Syndrome Is an Imposter
Are you a Writer?
What’s your immediate answer, when I ask that question? Is it a resounding “YES!”? Or a quieter, “Well, maybe… sort of…” or even “Not yet, because…”
If, like me, you’ve set your writing goals for the year, it’s important to start the year off with the right mindset, and foremost is thinking about our identities as writers.
On Planning, Scheduling, and Not Giving Up
Welcome to 2021! Has everyone set their writing goals for the year? Do you know what you want to do, your target date, and do you have a plan and a schedule to make it happen? I know, I know, it goes against all ideas of “creativity” to plan and schedule your writing. If you wanted that, you’d go work in a factory. But today I’m going to show you a very good reason to do so.
How to Set Yourself Up for Success in Meeting Your 2021 Writing Goals
As the final post of 2020, I’d like to leave you with some questions for reflection as you plan for 2021.
From last time:
How to Smash Your 2021 Writing Goals - Starting Now
To end this year, I’m going to write a couple of posts on goals for 2021. I know a lot of people, myself included, hate the dreaded “new year resolutions,” having too often experienced a few days or weeks of early optimism soon torpedoed by boredom or difficulty. This is different, I promise! Setting goals is actually a good thing to do, if you do it right.
But still, isn’t it fine to wait until January to plan for 2021?
Favorite Book Roundup, Part II
Here I am again, with the second round of books I particularly enjoyed in 2020. My reading has taken a back seat in the past couple of weeks to holiday preparations, but I’m excited about this week’s list, sine these are the ones I read in the second half of the year and I found some real gems.
Favorite Book Roundup, Part I
I aim to read 52 books a year. Sometimes it’s a few more, sometimes a few less. I try to read a mix of fiction and nonfiction, and different types or genres of both. For the next two weeks, I’ll be talking about my favorites from 2020.
The 12 Days of Writing Gifts
And… we leap from Thanksgiving straight into gift-giving season. I don’t know why it always takes me by surprise. And this year, when the mail is slower than usual just at the time when most of us are trying to do our shopping online, we have to think about it sooner rather than later.
A Writer’s Thanksgiving
This week will be a short post, but an important one, and relevant for the holiday (at least, here in the U.S.): gratitude. For me as a writer (and listening to many writers I know), it feels like we often focus on what we lack: motivation, time to write, a good agent (or any agent), visibility in the marketplace, stellar sales… there is always something. If anyone does mention something positive, they often do it with a ton of self-deprecation, as though it is – well, maybe not a crime, but certainly rude to call out your own good fortune in the midst of others’ misery.
Get It Out of Your Brain and Onto the Page
I have to remember to buy yogurt at the grocery store.
Why hasn’t that agent gotten back to me yet? Does my whole book idea suck? Do I need to rewrite the first chapter - again?!
I need to figure out what courses to offer for spring. Maybe I could do one on the Inside Outline…
What do these have in common? They are all sentences from my recent Morning Pages.
Which Brain are You Using?
That may seem like an odd question. Although with all the recent political upheaval, it might be tempting to see if I could use one other than the one currently residing inside my skull. One less stressed, foggy, and not running in twenty different directions at once.
But in a sense, we all have two brains when it comes to doing creative work. The trick is to allow each its time to shine. For short, I’ll call them the Creating Brain and the Editing Brain. I’ll skip the neuroscience for now (believe me, I can be a neurobiology nerd) but the important thing to know is, there really are different parts of your brain firing up when taking on different tasks.
Your Writing Matters
For whoever needs to hear this today, I say this: Keep writing. Keep putting your voice out there. Your art, your passion, your creativity, your sense of humor. The world needs it more than ever.
It’s Coming… How to Prepare Your Life for NaNoWriMo (or any writing retreat)
Hopefully by now you are on track with developing your characters, their world, and the major plot points of the story you want to write. Normally I would say, take your time, don’t be in a rush with this process because the more you have developed before you begin, the better chance you have of writing something that will be well-structured from the get-go, with less chance of getting to the middle (or the end) and realizing you left out a crucial piece of plot or character development. However, if you’ve taken this month to do the steps I’ve outlined, you will have a strong start to your revved-up novel-writing process.
NaNoWriMo: You Need a Plan Part III – What’s Your Story?
This week, we’re going to tackle the basics of your story structure. I say basics because when I work with clients, this part alone can take weeks to nail down if we were to do all the pieces, including feedback. If you’re starting NaNoWriMo on November 1, you don’t have that kind of time. Hence, this quick-and-dirty introduction to figuring out the major story milestones you need to hit, which will at least give you some goalposts to work towards as you write your first 50K words.