New Year Planning Part II - Prepare Your Time, Your Space, and Your Mind for Success
Did you work on your overall writing goals for 2022 last week? Hopefully you’ve given it some thought, because this week we’re going to tackle what it will take to ensure sure you succeed. To do this, we’ll think about five areas:
New Year Planning Part I – What Are Your Writing Goals?
I know, right about now, you’re probably like, can I just finish this year and then worry about next year? And you can – of course you can. You can (and should) do your planning throughout the year, in fact, recalibrating your goals as needed. What you think will work next year right now, may need some tweaks as you go.
But now is the perfect time to take stock, assess what you did this year, and plan for next.
My Annual List of Gifts for Writers, 2021 Edition
Here we go! This is a list of some of the most fun and/or useful stuff I’ve found this year. Hopefully it will inspire some gift ideas – for a writer in your life, or for yourself!
Breaking Through Blocks Part III: The Revision Process
So far in this series, we’ve looked at Strategies You Can Use to Break Through Blocks Any Time and Strategies for Starting and Finishing a First Draft.
But as any good writer knows, the magic is not in the writing, but the rewriting. You have a draft? Great! Now the real work begins.
Breaking Through Writer’s Block, Part II: Starting (and Finishing!) Your First Draft
Last week I discussed the fact that so-called “blocks” can take many forms, and come at any stage of writing. They have different root causes, many based in fear and uncertainty. Since our minds shy away from discomfort, we find it easier, in some ways, to simply not write – until the pain of not writing becomes great enough to propel us into action for a little while, at least.
Breaking Through Writer’s Block Part I: Strategies for Any Stage
Writers can feel blocked at any stage of a writing project:
Before you even start, you can feel paralyzed about where to begin, or even what to write.
In the middle, you can feel blocked over how it’s going, or what to write next.
At the end of the first draft (or the tenth) when revision looms, you may feel overwhelmed with the daunting task ahead to make your book something people will actually want to read.
For the rest of November, I’m going to focus on block-busting.
Books for Native American Heritage Month
November is officially Native American Heritage Month, which means new opportunities to explore the literature created by a range of authors writing from a variety of traditions. There is a huge range of books for all ages, so choosing just a few to highlight is challenging.
7 Lessons for Writers from Dorothy Dunnett’s The Game of Kings
I just finished re-reading this book, the first in The Lymond Chronicles, a series of historical novels about, loosely speaking, the adventures of an extraordinary young Scottish nobleman, Francis Crawford of Lymond, in 16th-century Europe. I started my Lymond journey at age fourteen, when I foraged The Game of Kings from a used bookstore somewhere in Georgia while traveling with my father.
It’s National Book Month! What Are the Books that “Made” You as a Writer?
This week, write down at least ten of your favorite books of all time. Then think about why you love them. Don’t just list books you’ve enjoyed as an adult. Reach back into childhood and think about the books that influenced you, that made you want to become a writer.
Let’s Do the Mash! Genre Mashups and How they Can Work for You
It’s that season again, where monsters start to take up space in stores, on porches - and in our imaginations. But did you ever realize that, like Dr. Frankenstein, we can keep putting our writing monsters together out of various parts all year?
September Book Roundup
I hit a bumper crop of books I enjoyed this month. A big dose of fantasy, a smidge of historical fiction/mythology, a book on how being more curious can help almost every aspect of your life, and why staying small = staying sane in business.
Books to Check Out for Hispanic Heritage Month
Hispanic (or Latine, or Latinx) Heritage Month is September 15-October 15. Below I’ve chosen some books to check out if you’re looking for reading material. I didn’t plan on making them all by women, but those are the ones I’ve been drawn to lately, so there you go. There is such a wonderful variety out there, it was hard to narrow it down.
How to Prepare for Pitch Wars
Q: What is Pitch Wars?
A: It’s a short-term (about 3 months) mentorship program for writers of Middle-grade, YA, and adult fiction. It only opens for a brief period in the early fall. This year, it opens for submissions 9/26/21 and closes 9/30/21. If you are accepted, a mentor-writer will work with you for the 3 months leading up to an Agent Showcase, where you can have your work seen by agents actively looking for manuscripts.
Book Review: Blueprint for a Book
Full disclosure: I am a book coach trained by Jennie through her Author Accelerator book coach certification program. I use the Blueprint method specifically in one of my own coaching packages. And I use it to develop my own books. So, I didn’t exactly come to read this book from a fresh perspective.
August Book Roundup
I read fewer books this month, mainly because I was reading the nonfiction ones slowly, savoring the material and making notes. But the fiction I read I had real fun with. If you like twisty, character-driven mysteries, Lucy Foley is the author for you.
And two of the nonfiction books this month are outstanding: Rachel Rodgers’ We Should All Be Millionaires and Jennie Nash’s Blueprint for a Book. If you’re a woman interested in making serious money or a writer looking for a way to cut that first draft time in half, read on to find out more.
Want to Write More? Walk More!
Today I took a long walk in one of my favorite local places, Breakheart Reservation in Saugus. It has two small lakes, and miles of trails - paved loops that are easy for fast walks, and lots of wooded trails along the river and over the ridge, and around the lakes. I still haven’t explored them all.
June-July Book Roundup
This month is a mega-post of books, since I didn’t do one for June after having several other book-related posts that month. If you’re looking for some reading material to round out your summer, there’s plenty here to choose from!