• Now Write Exercise Two

    Now Write Exercise Two – Jule Selbo Pick the clear genre (sci-fi, fantasy, horror, or thriller – I picked horror) The first scene needs to make it clear and also introduce the character List possible sub-genres to support your story (I picked paranormal) Frame the story in the overriding genre ** So I didn’t feel…

  • More Creative Penn for your Day

    I know I gush about Joanna Penn enough, but I would literally be lost without her podcast/newsletter/books etc, etc. So on the theme of plotting, planning, and all that nonsense I rambled on about on Thursday, here’s another one of her interviews.

  • Plotter and Pantser

    I have made significant progress on my nonfiction project in the last month. It’s a bit of a mess, but at least it’s a mess on paper and I can clean it up and make something interesting out of in the end. What I’ve been thinking about recently is the plotter vs. pantser argument. And…

  • Shameless Self Promo

    So. This book came out on February 28th. Anyway. On Thursday, I’ll ramble about my writing process some more. And I wrote this collection of short stories using that writing process. Just sayin.

  • Now Write Writing Exercise

    Writing exercise from NOW WRITE! Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror exercise book. Exercise one, Steven Saus. Pick an image (I used a random image generator) Pick only one element of the image (I picked the broken tree in the background) Repeat for a cross idea (random image generator, I picked birds) Force the ideas together…

  • New Book Alert!

    Back at the beginning of the year, I made a game plan to achieve multiple goals this year. One of those goals was to release another collection of short stories. And it’s ready! Spoiler alert, it’s stories that were previously published on this blog, but with another run through of edits to make sure they’re…

  • State of Mind – A Writing Exercise

    *Exercise from Naming the World. State of Mind. Explore a character’s thoughts before having them plunge into an action* There were so many things in life that I thought I would accomplish before now. I wanted to finish college and buy a house. I wanted to get married and have a baby. I thought I’d…

  • Outlining A Novel

    I love, love, love Joanna Penn’s podcast. I binge listen to old episodes while I’m at work and can’t get enough of her tips and tricks. Since this week I talked about my creative process and outlining procedures, I found this podcast episode that had a similar topic. Hope you enjoy it.

  • Book Binder Layout

             This year I’ve taken on another type of writing project; a non-fiction book on the writing process. My original outline for this had literally every step of the journey, and I realized that it would be waaayyyy too much for one book. So, I pruned it down and thought I’d go one step at…

  • Plotting Resources

    I’ve read soooo many books that have helped me develop my writing process, but these three were the main ones that helped me with plotting. On Thursday I go into more detail about my plotting routine.