Well, how are you doing? Are you taking on the NaNoWriMo challenge? If not, are you working on your WIP at a reasonable pace? Good! Here’s what I love about NaNoWriMo. Fast drafting. There’s an entire movement in the writing world telling us, “You can write fast and get a book almost done!” We’ve been given permission to press on, forget editing, forget fixing and polishing! Just write. A professor friend of mine tweeted that she was participating in NaNoWriMo for the “fun of fiction.” How true. For one month, you get to just make up a story! She can have red hair on page one, blue on page 50 and brown on page 100. She can be write, black, Hispanic. He can be a doctor, then a lawyer and maybe […]
Read the RestArchive | How do I get started? RSS feed for this section
A Word From Your Book Therapist: It’s All About Craft, Baby!
If you’ve hung around My Book Therapy for any length of time, you know we focus a lot on crafting a novel. If you’re new to MBT, we are about crafting a novel. Dictionary.com defines craft as: an art, trade, or occupation requiring special skill, especially manual skill: the craft of a mason. skill; dexterity: The silversmith worked with great craft. Let’s tailor the definition a bit. The writer must possess a special skill to ply his trade. The writer worked with great craft. The statistic is 80% of all people believe they have a book in them. How many do you suppose actually write that book? My guess is less than 20%. Why? Time, heart, passion, skill, talent. Resistance and procrastination. Above all, lack of knowledge which means lack of craft. Recently I started taking piano lessons. My teacher is starting off with music theory. I find myself […]
Read the RestStorytelling vs. Backstory
We’re continuing to blog questions from blog readers and MBT Voices. If you have a question, be sure to email me at Rachel@mybooktherapy.com. So, here’s today’s question. Q: How do I add “storytelling elements” to my novel without dumping backstory? A: The balance between back story and the action on the page is tricky but not hard. Let’s look at a few definitions before we outline some guidelines for weaving back story into a scene. Story telling elements are just those fragments of a characters life, history, wants, goals and desires that are necessary for filling out or understanding a scene. The trick is to deliver just enough emotion and history to intrigue the reader while filling them in on what’s going on. For example, if Sally is not excited […]
Read the Rest
Copyright 101—Part One
Lately, I’ve seen a lot of discussion about copyright issues. Specifically, what is legal to use on a blog, website or in a book. Today, instead of giving you all the facts, I thought we’d have some fun and take a little quiz. We’ll do part one today, and part two in the next post. COPYRIGHT QUIZ—HOW FAMILIAR ARE YOU WITH THE LAW? All the answers are True or False, so let’s get on with the quiz! 1. I can legally post any picture on my blog if I link back to the place I got it. FALSE: photos, sketches, graphics, any kind—are covered by the same copyright law as our written words. Unfortunately, there is lots of sharing going on over the Internet and it’s not legal. When we borrow […]
Read the Rest
