Find Value in Your “Mistakes”
There are two types of writers–the ones who hate their work immediately, and the ones who hate their work eventually. Either way, it’s inevitable that at one point or another, you’ll read back what you’ve written and think, “what was I thinking?” and “who let me call myself a writer?” and “thank goodness no one will ever read that.” It’s tempting to want to build a fire right there on the desk and watch all evidence of such a...
Read More1,000 Ideas in an Hour
My first order of business once I decided to focus on character building this year was to go online and shop for a character-building book. I am locationally challenged when it come to educational opportunities and right now, even an online class would be difficult to commit to. But writing craft books are great because I can pick them up whenever I have a few spare moments to get inspired. I had never heard of Characters & Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card before but the reviews on Amazon...
Read MoreEditing = Listening to the Story
I’m a few weeks into the editing process and I have to say, it’s slow going. Since this is the second draft and I’m focusing on story structure and adding a subplot, there’s a lot of writing still to do, which requires me to switch back and forth from writing and editing brain. Who knew that could be so hard? For every few chapters that need to be edited, one needs to be written and I have to ground myself in the creative part of my brain again. I’ve read a lot of...
Read MoreResearching Story Locations
While preparing for the second draft of my WIP, I finally had to face the fact that my fantasy was about to become a reality. It was time to create timelines, fact check and do research to make sure all my ideas lined up with the possibilities of real life. I had a concern about the location of my story and whether or not it’s weather was in line with the ideas I had for my plot. Since I’ve only been to my story’s location once in my life, for just a few days (and while my...
Read MoreThe Day I Decided to Quit Writing
Earlier this week, I decided to quit writing. Things in my personal life had come to a breaking point and trying to find time to write only seemed to be making it worse. A couple of my writing friends blogged about how negative people can be to one another, bringing up those old fears of publishing. And, worst of all, my story was falling apart. Have you ever gotten to that point when everything you thought you knew about your novel seemed completely wrong? I’m sure everyone who has...
Read MoreThe First Read
This weekend I did the first read of my novel. I was totally excited about it up until the day I planned to start, when the doubts finally sunk in. I had this vision in my head of the novel I wrote and I was horrified by the thought that what I was about to read wasn’t anything like it. I thought I’d written a visual and heartrending story and by the time I sat down with iPod in hand, I was sure I’d written a cheesy rendition of what could have been a story. Setting the...
Read MoreResearching Character Emotions
In the genre I write (something of the romance/women’s fiction variety) there isn’t much research involved. I don’t need to understand police procedures like mystery writers do and I don’t need to know how people dressed in England in the 15th Century like historical fiction authors. The most important thing I need to grasp to write my novels is relationships and, in a sense, I research that every day in my own experiences and observations. Other than geographical...
Read MoreLine Editing
This week, I finished the third draft of my first novel. In that draft, I focused on line editing. Line editing is, of course, breaking down each sentence for word choice, fluidity, structure, etc. It’s a very time consuming process but if done correctly, it can improve your writing by leaps and bounds. In order to make sure I was doing it correctly, I got some help from a couple of books: The Marshall Plan for Novel Writing by Evan Marshall and The First Five Pages: A Writer’s...
Read MoreA Great Writer Means Writing Without Words
Lately, I’ve been analyzing every book I’ve read recently, hoping that the genius of it will pop off the page, manifest itself in my brain and then proceed to regurgitate it’s wisdom through my fingertips. So far, no luck, but I do think I’m getting closer to step one, at least. I recently racked my brain for all of the best books I’ve read and tried to figure out what they had in common. The ones that stood out to me were the novels by Phillipa Gregory, The...
Read MoreJamie Raintree
Jamie writes what she likes to call everyday fairytale love stories, featuring the little moments in life that are truly magical. She lives in Northern Arizona with her husband and daughter and is currently editing her second novel.
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