We’re sharing our best writing tips this month here on The Debutante Ball, and since this happens to coincide with National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo or NaNo for short), I thought I’d tailor my advice for the NaNo folks out there. November is quickly running out and for many writers it’s make or break time. So what do you do if you still have 10-20k left on your word count…
In college, I had a summer job at the Latham Circle Mall Waldenbooks (of blessed memory). The manager made me a keyholder, so I was tasked with getting to the mall early, opening the rattling grate, turning on all the lights and setting up the registers. If I did that fast enough, I then had twenty minutes to put away newly-delivered books. Sometimes—just sometimes—I’d leave a tiny little gap in…
Today is November 1st, which makes it a special day for several reasons. When I was in college in California, today was the day that the Chicano Latino Student Union dressed the courtyard outside the dining hall in paper marigolds and burning candles, sugar skulls and sugary bread for Día de los Muertos. On a plastic table draped in dark tablecloth are framed photographs of people I don’t know. On…
The Twice-Born Book: I wrote my first book because I wanted to read it – Toni Morrison I’m a voracious reader. I admit it. I started young – one of my favorite books came in to my possession when I turned nine. A friend of the family gave me Anthony B. Lake’s A Pleasury of Witticisms and Word Play. Inside those pages I learned all about anagrams and palindromes,…
This week we are talking about writing contests, which is going to be an interesting discussion for me because I’m here to represent the losers. Contests, while presumably wonderful if you win them, or at least receive some attention from them, are not the path to publication for some of us. I’ve entered one writing contest: Pitch Wars. It describes itself this way: Pitch Wars is a contest where published/agented…
I love NaNoWriMo. I’ve participated, in some fashion or another, nearly every year since 2002 — my senior year of high school, when I would print out each day’s composition and read it to friends during lunch. In case you’re not familiar with the concept, National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, or simply Nano, is a challenge where writers across the world, of all ages and experience levels, dedicate themselves…
Let me tell you… I LOVE deadlines. I live for their adrenaline rush! No seriously, I’m not joking. Deadlines keep me grounded, gives me direction and motivation. Helps me stay organized and prioritize tasks. I am the Queen of Calendars! I live for challenges like #NaNoWriMo and I applaud everyone who is participating. Since I have a few other looming writer deadlines, I’m not able to partake this year. But I…
This week, in honor of National Novel Writing Month (#NanoWriMo), the Debs are talking about our feelings about external challenges, deadlines, writing contests, and more. I’ll just cut to the chase: I’m not doing #NanoWriMo. I like the idea. I do. And really, I thrive on pressure and tight deadlines. True story: I got my first round of edits from my editor in December for BECOMING BONNIE. I had a baby…
This week, in honor of National Novel Writing Month (NANOWRIMO), the Debs are talking about our feelings about external challenges, deadlines, writing contests and more. There, I said it. I’m cheating on NANOWRIMO. But not cheating in the string-of-conscious, crazy scenario sort of way that many NANOWRIMOers pants their way through. My way of cheating is that I’m not starting a new novel. I’m working on an existing story. That…
In 2001—yes 14 years ago—a friend of mine said, “I heard about this writing challenge where you try and write a novel in a month. It takes place in November and you need to write 50,000 words.” “That’s freakin’ crazy!” I said. And then a moment later, “I’m in.” So what that I was working at a 70-hour-a-week job? So what that I was planning my wedding? So what that…
