@faith_blum I haven’t been making weekly goals recently, but I want to get back into the swing of things. I’m putting my current story online, a chapter at a time, but I’ve been letting it stall. My goal this week is to finish the second chapter and make edits, suggested by a friend, to the first.

Yeah, that’s good! I’ll take yours.

The restaurant was crowded, the noise of babbling conversation almost as pervasive as the smell of grease. But even amid this clamor, it was hard not to notice the teenagers in a corner booth. Loud laughter spilled out from the trio of girls, echoing over the establishment. One leaned over, pounding on the…[Read more]

The reason it didn’t work out the first time was that nobody had time to read the book. Maybe we should wait and do it over the summer instead?

Welcome!

How bad is it to have something new show up in the climax and surprise people? For instance, a few of my climaxes involve my characters, for lack of a better word, ‘unlocking’ new powers they didn’t have before, which help resolve the problem. Everyone says the climax should be well-foreshadowed and not come out of nowhere, or the audience might…[Read more]

I have to admit, I thought I shot kind of low last week when planning to just adjust the outline for my second draft. But my editor still hasn’t given it an unqualified all-clear. I might have to bug him to get back to me.

I haven’t had a lot of time recently… this week’s goal is to return to my major WIP (probably about 30,000 words) which has been inactive since last semester, currently a finished first draft. I need to figure out the scene order and chapters so I can rewrite it with better structure now that it’s all laid out in front of me.

I have no idea what my goal was, but this week I want to finish one short story (for a contest!) and maybe, if I have time, start shuffling around the scenes from my big WIP to make it more organized before I start the second draft.

I have some things I’d like to work on writing, but none big enough to be resolutions. I don’t even know how much I generally write in a year, so I don’t know how to make a goal to push that. I have a few projects I’m working on, but they’re all pretty short, so all I can see ahead is the next few months, not a whole year. I did, however, finally…[Read more]

Remember when Avensbeck won every single war? This is our comeuppance.

I love your discussion topics! They’re super helpful and inspire me to write. I don’t always comment, because sometimes I don’t have anything to say, but I do really appreciate having them.

I like Serenity’s idea of having the dream blend real fears with unreal events.

@faith_blum Final count: 12621

I wrote just a teeny tiny bit more yesterday, even though I thought I wouldn’t, so my current count is a nice palindrome: 12621. Not a high number, but an aesthetically pleasing one.

Standing at 12,109 and not likely to write any more today.

I needed this and a good deal more–not for writing, but for school. My workload is threatening to bury me, but I could easily get it under control if I would just do it already.

Oh, boy. I’ve been working on a twist villain as well, so here’s what worked for me, but no guarantees.

If the villain is acting nice, there’s probably a reason. They shouldn’t just be trying to hide by pretending to be a good guy–they should be trying to accomplish something. They have an endgame, and they’re working towards it in secret. Let’s…[Read more]

Definitely focus on the emotions. Correcting mechanics errors is good, but what they’re probably looking for most is whether the mood they’re trying to convey is coming across well. Compliment the places feelings are expressed well to show what you’re looking for in the areas that are too sparse.

And one of the best things that ever happened to…[Read more]

Still at 1139. Sorry I couldn’t add any later.

Do words written today count, or is today the end date?