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A couple of times I’ve mentioned The Snowflake Method, a technique to organize a novel before diving into the first draft. Some of the steps include creating a scene list and interviewing characters. I personally used this approach and, without it, I don’t know if I ever could have gotten my novel started.
The very first step of the Snowflake Method is to describe the plot of your novel in one sentence.
I get it. You’re busy. You have other commitments: work, school, the kids, your friends. I understand.
I know writing a short story or a novel or a blog post is scary. What if someone reads it? And yes, it’s true. You might fail. People might not like what you write. Worse, they might ignore your writing altogether.
However, if you’ve ever wanted to be a writer, now is the time to start. If you don’t believe me, here are seventeen reasons to write right now.
As a writer, it’s easy to get sucked into the mundane world of dirty sweatpants, stale coffee and cold pizza. I mean, who really needs to see us while we’re writing, right?
While that may work for a time, pretty soon we become hermits, hoarding our words, shunning the light and developing a Smeagol-like complexion. Gross.
Life is full of inspiring conversations waiting to happen! String together five simple words to elicit information and jumpstart learning, connection and discovery.
My friends and I were hanging out over the long weekend, and somehow we got started quoting Love Actually. I love that movie, and it’s probably one of my favorite holiday films, but I was thinking today of why I liked it so much. I finally decided that it’s because it tells so many different love stories and makes you care about every one of the characters involved. It can definitely be a challenge to keep up with all the intertwined relationships, but you get the gist of them pretty quickly.
The last couple of weeks I have been thinking about dialogue in fiction. A friend of mine told me that some agents will flip to a random section of a manuscript and make a judgment based solely on the dialogue!
I don’t know about you, but I truly believe that whoever said, “The real problem with reality is the lack of background music,” was really onto something.
We all love music, no exceptions (unless you are some sort of alien from a deaf planet, and even then, that’s pushing it). Music enhances everything: movies, showers, pool parties, workouts, spring cleanings, and even relaxation. It cannot be denied. Music stimulates our psyche.
Did you see the thrilling World Cup match between Colombia and Uruguay? Or the one between Argentina and Switzerland yesterday? Are you beside yourself to watch Colombia beat Brazil (my prediction) in the quarterfinals? I can barely breathe just thinking about it.
There are personal reasons why I’m cheering for Colombia, even though they do have THE BEST DANCE MOVES. But while we palpitate about the world’s best sporting event in the entire history of the entire human race, let us explore the uncanny parallels between the World Cup and what we’ll call the Writer’s Cup.
If you’re like me, you probably have way too much on your plate. Kids, school, work, the dreaded pile of laundry gathering in the corner. How do you make time for your writing when you’re so busy? One way to keep writing when you’re too busy to write a book is to write a poem instead.
As I’m writing this, it’s a cloudy morning in Georgia. The sticky heat of summer has finally let off. The crickets are still going away and the trees look marvelous. That’s one thing you don’t get in California, at least the part of California I grew up, huge, green trees everywhere.
And as I’m looking at them, sipping my coffee, I asked myself, when was the last time you noticed those trees? When was the last time you were this grateful just to be alive?
It’s been my experience that all my best writing—and most satisfying writing time—comes out of this place of gratefulness, this rootedness in the moment.
However, I’m in the process of launching a book right now, and I don’t have time to look at trees or even write very much. All I have time to do, it seems, is market. Of course, nearly every author today is struggling with the same thing. We all have to market our books. We all have to hustle if we want our words to spread. Which leads me and others to the question:
Is it possible to write and market your books at the same time? And on a larger scale, is today’s publishing reality keeping us from creating our best art?
