May 2013
2 posts
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“There’s a difference between writing for a living and writing for life. If you...”
– Toni Morrison - excerpt from Black Women Writers at Work (1985) edited by Claudia Tate (via elctrcldy)
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You know you’ve lost it a bit when you’re wandering around DeviantArt and you catch yourself right before you do a search for one of your original characters.
/sigh
April 2013
5 posts
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Came across a quote today, supposedly from Oscar Wilde:
Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.
And that pretty much sums up how I feel about my characters.
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Hurray! Actually started writing the sequel to the book I finished last year. I’ve just realized this is the first sequel I’ve ever started. That’s not really momentous — it’s just another book, right? — but it kind of feels that way. Maybe because I’m continuing something for a reason other than that it wasn’t finished to begin with. ;)
I think it might be (at...
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Is it sad that I want to publish my book solely because I want it to be in book form, so I can carry it around and read it, instead of having to read it in a Word document?
I feel so narcissistic. ;)
March 2013
11 posts
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Fantasy novels to read
A work by one of my favorite authors (who happens to be not so well known) made it onto Flavorwire’s list of best fantasy novels you probably haven’t read. *happy dance happy dance*
Her book is the #6 listing: The Death of the Necromancer. Her name is Martha Wells. Go and read. As a bonus, the author is a lovely person, too, so supporting her is a double whammy of yay. Good writing,...
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I Should Be Writing...: So naturally one part of... →
i-should-be-writing:
Sadly, though the agents themselves are most definitely human, and probably understand, they don’t often have a lot of time. They get hundreds of emails like mine every day, and just to meet their own quotas so they can pay their own bills, they have to be ruthless.
I do agree with you though. Thank you for your thoughts. :)
I won’t get into how I think...
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There’s something posted over on i-should-be-writing that references the Bechdel Test, which sent me off on a hunt through my lone finished novel manuscript to see whether the conversation I remember occurring between two female characters is focused around a man or men. (The answer is “no,” if you care. Or rather, the answer is more accurately “They have way more...
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I Should Be Writing...: So naturally one part of... →
i-should-be-writing:
So naturally one part of my submission has no line breaks in it. (Query letter is fine. Synopsis is fucked up. Writing sample is fine.)
IMHO? Unless the lack of line breaks literally makes that whole section unreadable and that section itself is terribly important, that doesn’t seem like it should be a dealbreaker. Unless someone is being extra obsessive, of...
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I’ve started writing something new, and I appear to actually be writing something for once that isn’t about a guy and a girl who will end up in a romantic relationship with each other. What what what???
I have no idea when I reached the universe in which this is possible, but here I am.
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i-should-be-writing: I really hate drinking ground... →
i-should-be-writing:
i-should-be-writing:
I really hate drinking ground coffee that you buy in the stores because
1) coffee is more expensive than it should be,
2) it goes bad in like a day,
3) #2 again.
I mean, I can’t add liquor to my coffee every time it tastes bad.
Well I can.
But liquor is expensive…
I would so roast beans on my own if I could. I live in a really strange area...
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i-should-be-writing:
I really hate drinking ground coffee that you buy in the stores because
1) coffee is more expensive than it should be,
2) it goes bad in like a day,
3) #2 again.
I mean, I can’t add liquor to my coffee every time it tastes bad.
Well I can.
But liquor is expensive too.
So is a new coffee machine that accepts beans and grinds them up.
So is a grinder on its own.
So is...
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“What you read when you don’t have to determines what you will be when you...”
– Oscar Wilde
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“One day you will wake up and there won’t be any more time to do the things...”
– Paulo Coelho
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“O! for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention.”
– William Shakespeare
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Derailed
I was all hyped up to write, and then I got distracted by a Facebook meme, and now I’m derailed.
Thought I was going to start March with a bang, but looks like it might be a slow start after all. Whoopsie.
February 2013
3 posts
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“When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people, not...”
– Ernest Hemingway
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“Writers live twice.”
– Natalie Goldberg
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“There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside of you.”
– Maya Angelou
January 2013
3 posts
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vvolare:
“My experience of life is that it is not divided up into genres; it’s a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you’re lucky.”
— Alan Moore
And don’t forget the magic.
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Considering starting to post some poetry here. I had a massive poetry-writing year last year, and I’m entertaining the idea that some of it doesn’t suck. ;) Not sure yet, though. Mulling…
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Success, failure, and the future: a Year of the...
So, Tumblr peeps.
So.
Did I write my 50k words in December? No, indeed. And I haven’t done it so far in January, either.
But one of the things I finally figured out last year was why people say to keep fighting, keep getting up after you fall, keep moving until you’re not failing any more. I have a long history of semi-purposeful failure, thanks to an early-ingrained belief that...
December 2012
6 posts
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“Work is the only device I know of. Writing has laws of perspective, of light and...”
– Truman Capote (via theparisreview) (via yeahwriters)
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How I won NaNoWriMo after many years of fail
There are many methods, but this was mine.
The first year I won — the first year I tried — NaNoWriMo, I followed the traditional theme. You know, the one the NaNoWriMo site itself espouses: Turn off the inner editor, turn on the stream of consciousness, and dare to suck. (Though I’m stealing “dare to suck” from another part of my life as a paraphrase here. Thanks, Faire. ;) )
...
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“The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.”
– Gustave Flaubert
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DONE.
It is.
Done.
The first novel I have ever completed.
I am old, in Tumblr years. I am old. I still have a copy of a file containing the first novel attempt I ever began banging out on a (computer) keyboard. The original file was created on an afternoon in late September 1995.
A touch over 17 years later, I have finally gotten out of my own damn way enough to let myself finish a book. Not the...
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The post-NaNoWriMo future: The Year of the WriMo
Since I pulled off something in November that seemed near-impossible, and I only did it by breaking my previous daily record for two days straight, so that I met my goal even though I didn’t write at anything resembling a steady pace, I think it’s time to break out the crazy new goals.
This is what I want to do: I want to write 50,000 words a month for a whole year. (Or maybe just for...
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controversialwonderland:
I want a typewriter for my nineteenth birthday.
That’s all.
Pretty please.
What kind? I have two and I might be persuaded to give one up. However, the shipping would be atrocious and I’m not sure where to find ink for it any more. ;)
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November 2012
84 posts
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Silence is semi-golden: an update on NaNoWriMo Day...
Total word count: 40,317
Daily words written: 8,727
Thoughts:
132 words can be magical.
The most I’ve ever written in one day during NaNoWriMo is was 8,595 words. That was on November 29, 2004, and that day’s writing put me over 50k words for that year.
But as of November 29, 2012, I have a new personal daily word count record. And hopefully after November 30, 2012, I’ll...
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“It’s too disturbing to read a writer with a good style when you’re in the middle...”
– Norman Mailer (via amandaonwriting)
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Fuck Yeah Character Development!: 100 Words for... →
aneira-hailey:
1. Absent: preoccupied 2. Agonized: as if in pain or tormented 3. Alluring: attractive, in the sense of arousing desire 4. Appealing: attractive, in the sense of encouraging goodwill and/or interest 5. Beatific: see blissful 6. Bilious: ill-natured 7. Black:…
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“So now do you see why books are hated and feared? They show pores in the face of...”
– Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (via rosikittymeow)
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NaNoWriMo Day 19 status update & a milestone
Total word count: 26,840
Daily words written: 628
Thoughts: No excerpt again because I didn’t write anything particularly stellar in the whopping 600ish words I managed to squeak in before midnight.
However.
2012 has now officially become my second best year of NaNoWriMo.
Last year, I wrote 26,758 words, which is the most I’d written since 2004. As of today I’m 82 words over...
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i-should-be-writing:
Three chapters away from completion. I can’t frigging believe it. I’m about to have a third piece of proof that I can do whatever I actually just sit down. set my mind to it, and do it.
WHAT WHAT WHAT.
Why did I have to be so OLD before I figured out this actually works?!
-L
I just had a similar moment a few days ago. For the first time ever, I think I actually know...
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NaNoWriMo Day 18 status update
Total word count: 26,212
Daily words written: 2,425
Thoughts: Again no excerpt. Still in the middle of that scene. And now I should go write a little for today so I don’t have a zero count for Day 19. ;)
