“Today, you write,” I said to Sally as she plunked down her bag. She appeared frazzled today, her blonde hair pulled back into a frizzy ponytail, and she wasn’t wearing makeup. “Good, because I need some writing therapy,” she said as she sat down on the chair. “After week with the kids home from school, it’s time to escape. In fact, I might have already started.” She handed me four pages of her manuscript. “It’s the first scene.” I scanned it. “No, it’s not,” I said. “It’s a smattering if the first scene and a lot of backstory,” I handed it back to her. “But it’s a great start. And you’ve done what I would have suggested you do – sit down and start writing that first scene. I expected […]
Read the RestArchive | General Topics RSS feed for this section
Changes to Tweetdeck or Why I Moved to Hootsuite
This time last year I shared with you my discovery of the social media manager, Tweetdeck (www.tweetdeck.com). I was thrilled with its versatility and all the options it offered. Fast forward to this year and Twitter has since acquired Tweetdeck and my love affair with this program has waned. It no longer offers many of the options that helped me organize and manage my social networking. Here are just a few that have gone missing. •The ability to copy and paste something into updates. •The general ease of navigation that made this program so simple. •The live timeline that pops up no matter what you’re working on. •The easy interface between Tweetdeck and Facebook. Because of these changes I’ve switched programs and now use Hootsuite (www.hootsuite.com) almost exclusively. There are drawbacks to Hootsuite, but now I […]
Read the Rest
Quick Skills: Act 2 Plotting
Act 2 plotting in 5 easy questions! I always get the Chapter Seven Blues. I know it’s inevitable, but I seem to forget that it happens, and often I’ll find myself down in the kitchen, moping (and looking for chocolate) and my husband will say… “You’re at Chapter 7, aren’t you?” I’ll turn, stare at him, and nod. “How did you know that?” “Because the excitement of the story has gotten you through chapter 3, and Act 1, and the momentum carried you into chapters 4-6, but now the steam has died in the middle of Act 2, and you’re down here hunting for inspiration.” (This is usually accompanied by him taking the bag of chocolate chips out of my hand.) He’s dead right. I’m smack in the middle of the […]
Read the Rest
Conversations: Plotting Act 2
“I hope you brought your calculator,” I said to Sally as I slid into the chair at the coffee shop. Presidents Day meant no school, and I noticed her two children playing in the reading nook in the corner. “I didn’t realize I needed to know math to write a novel,” she said, but pulled out a notebook. “That may be a deal killer.” I laughed. “I know I said we’d talk about heroes and heroines this week, but I thought it might help to fill in the gaps of Act 2. See, last week we talked about storyflow, and I taught you how to put together what I call the bookends – Act 1 and Act 3. But these two acts comprise only 30-40% of your story. For example, for […]
Read the Rest
