November 25, 2011

While eating your turkey and pumpkin pie left-overs today, here are some terrific articles to boost your creativity, rise above your writing fears, be encouraged in marketing your novel, and keep on keeping on!

 

Fourth week pep talk from a published author who uses NaNoWriMo in his own unique way–four great lessons learned here.

Blogs may be easy for nonfiction writers, but what about novelists? What is there to blog about? See this article on 13 Blog Post Ideas for Novelists.

Week three pep talk on how to keep going, knowing when to quit, and more.

Oh what to do about our writer’s fears? The title says it all! [I had read this before and got just as much out of reading it again. It's a good one to mark and re-read occasionally.]

 

As I said on Wednesday, this holiday weekend would be a good time to think ahead to your 2012 writing goals. The articles above will give you good things to consider. I’m excited to be heading into the new year with you!

December 1, 2010

Even if you didn’t participate in this year’s November National Novel Writing Month, you can still have access to their NaNoWriMo pep talks that were sent throughout November to participants. Many of them are excellent!

Here’s what it says on their website: “We recruited an all-star team of authors to share their advice and thoughts on writing. Their pep talks will be emailed to participants throughout November. We hope their insight and encouragement help you on your way!”

Here you’ll find pep talks from some of the finest and best-selling writers of our time. Some are serious nuts-and-bolts advice talks while others are tongue-in-cheek funny. Either way, they’re an encouragement to those of us who are challenged on a regular basis with our writing.

Here are a few quotes to whet your appetite:

From Chris Baty: “Incite change. If your story is losing momentum, juice it up by inflicting some major changes on your characters. Crash the spaceship. End the marriage. Buy the monkey. Change is scary because we have to figure out what comes next. But feeling afraid is ten times better than feeling bored, and your book will benefit from your risk-taking. Go big this week! You won’t regret it.”

From Aimee Bender: “What we hold in our heads before we write is RARELY in sync with what shows up on the page, and if I were standing and saying this in front of you with a megaphone, I would say this next part especially loud and clear: The Page is All We Get. What shows up on the page? Well, that is your writing. The full-blown perfectly-whole concept you may have in your head? Is just thought.”

From Holly Black: “Here are some things I wish someone had told me when I was writing my first book. I want to say them to you in the hopes they will help and encourage you. Even if you’ve heard them before, it doesn’t hurt to be reminded.” And then she follows this with seven tips that are right on the money.

From Lindsey Grant: “You’ve been carrying around a story for a while now and you finally started writing it. Getting started is hard enough, but then you went on to write for a full week, bringing your story to life and making your noveling dream a reality. You’re well on your way, writer, and you have come so far already! Don’t let your inner editor convince you that this isn’t worth your time, or that you should start over, or-even worse-that you should start over some other time. For this novel there is no “later.” There is only now.”

From John Green: “All of us harbor secret hopes that a magnificent novel will tumble out of the sky and appear on our screens, but almost universally, writing is hard, slow, and totally unglamorous.”

From Mercedes Lackey: “I can’t think of anything more intimidating than a blank page. Especially the first blank page of a new project. Now, after twenty-mumble years of writing, I have a lot of things to get me past that…”

From Lemony Snicket: “Struggling with your novel? Paralyzed by the fear that it’s nowhere near good enough? Feeling caught in a trap of your own devising? You should probably give up.” Very funny letter follows!

So if you’re feeling sluggish and need some writing pep, check out these terrific pep talks. It just may be the jumpstart you need!

November 17, 2010

Amazon US is offering an outrageously great deal this week on the Kindle version of Randy Ingermanson‘s 5-star reviewed book WRITING FICTION FOR DUMMIES. You can get (and read) this book FOR FREE even if you don’t own a Kindle!

From November 15 to 19, 2010, Amazon US is offering the book WRITING FICTION FOR DUMMIES Kindle edition as a FREE download. Amazon’s special ends at midnight PST on Friday night, November 19, 2010.

Please note that this free Kindle-edition campaign is for Amazon US only. There is no similar campaign running on Amazon UK or Amazon Canada.

No Kindle? Doesn’t Matter!

Amazon has free software that lets you read Kindle-edition books directly on your Mac or PC. (I have Kindle for PC.) Likewise, there are free apps that read Kindle books on the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Blackberry, and Android. You can find a link to any of these free software products here. So you don’t have to own a Kindle in order to take advantage of this free offer. You just need Kindle software running on your computer or mobile device.

Begin learning from this excellent book today, right on your computer. Also, if you think you might ever want to buy a Kindle in the future, now is a good time to get the WRITING FICTION FOR DUMMIES Kindle edition.

P.S. If you download to Kindle PC, when you are reading the book, if you right-click your mouse, you can highlight sections or make a note in the margin. So you can “mark up” this book like a real one.