Following the Plot All The Way Through to the End
Wanted to drop by and share something interesting with all of you about what I’ve been learning lately. So, in the first version of ARGENTUM, I wanted to explore the world of the Violet War and needed a story to do it. Did my first draft make an excellent novel? NO. Why? Because the story [...]
A Renewed Sense of Focus
After a lovely yet busy week, I was finally able to sit down this morning with my manuscript for ARGENTUM and focus on the rewrite. I hit today’s goal with no trouble whatsoever; the re-plotting I did to ensure the story had a much narrower focus is working beautifully. I feel that that need to [...]
Wrangling the Details through Novel Writing Tools
One of the things that has been difficult to manage through the rewrite process, is the sheer volume of characters and places within the setting. As a result, the story was confusing for me to write, because this is the world that never ends. To help me wrangle this beast, I started looking at tools [...]
Taking a Serious Look at Chapter Breaks
For those of you who were here for much of the first draft, you know that I had employed a writing technique where I wrote a chapter and then offered a piece of the main character’s memory as the chapter break. The memories in the work are exceptionally important to the plot. Believe me when [...]
It’s March and I’m declaring WAR…on my Manuscript!
Did you know that March was named after Mars, the Roman god of war? Well, this month I’m declaring war…on my manuscript! After going through a few drafts, there are a couple of things I need to revise: 1) The overall story needs to be consistent and a lot more simplified so that it can [...]
Revisions Update and a Look at 2010
Hi folks, In December, I focused on the revisions for ARGENTUM through a December Writing Marathon that I had come up with. December was an extraordinarily busy month for several reasons, including a few additional projects that I did not expect to come up. Even though I didn’t get as much done as I wanted [...]
New Outline and December Writing Marathon
Hi Folks, The first three chapters are typically part of the query letter package for an agent. Concerned that I was getting off-target with the revisions, I threw together the revisions and got some feedback. When I did, I discovered two things: 1) I have created a big. damn. world. 2) My story lost its [...]
The Inspiration Behind Huginn
Dear Readers, I thought you might get a kick out of this particular webcomic, since it’s about Huginn. If you remember, Huginn is Serafina’s escort back to the Realm so she can have a “chat” with Mitra. As a shape-shifting raven, Huginn can travel freely between the worlds without fear of a mortal noticing him. [...]
The Mechanics of Revising: Font, Copy and Paste
After I got all excited about my spectacular “Chapter One,” I ended up revising a short story that needed some work and stumbled across different submission guidelines for various markets. I took one look at the formatting guidelines and went… “Uh-oh…ARGENTUM does not look like that…” So, I went ahead and formatted it differently using [...]
Dear Monica: Why Are The Revisions Taking So Long?
When I started working on revisions for the novel back in the Spring, I knew I was going to have to make some adjustments in my schedule. Before I started ARGENTUM, I often worked on a contract basis, which meant that someone handed me a contract and I said, “Okay, I’ll write for you.” Then, [...]
