It's time to start writing 1,000 words a day again. My productivity faltered over the winter, so I want to get moving. The last time I set this goal was for a challenge involving other people, and it was for 70 days, including weekends. For my own self, I want to write on weekdays and take weekends off. I think that'll be a sanity-supporting move. ( Read more... )

In the comments after my last post, On Writing Long When Attempting to Write Short, rachel_swirsky wrote:

Posting generic grumble/grump about how "too much description" and "too much wordiness" are often dependent on style and aesthetic, and while it's good that some people are (edited) Carver and Hemingway, one is glad that some people are Flannery O'Conner, ( Read more... )

Here are the things I think a person who wants to write fiction (professionally) ought to do, and I will guarantee you right now that the list will be missing things I don't know about, but anyway ( Read more... )

I'm new to the Serious Writing thing...
( Read on for my entry-level thoughts on submitting short stories. )

I'm going to do the 70 Days of Sweat writing challenge that starts tomorrow, because I was planning to start writing 1,000 words a day anyway, after reading From Idea to Story in 90 Seconds, so why not do that and post my progress for a bunch of other writers who are doing roughly the same thing ( Read more... )

I hereby declare this book to be the most useful one I read all year. It briefly gives clear directions for cutting 10% of the words from your prose, systematically, so that the writing improves in clarity and accuracy. I tested the process on my latest short story, and in less than 24 hours I painlessly removed over 600 words from a 5,200-word ( Read more... )

I just finished writing the first version of a thoroughly weird ghost story, and despite my concerns about the ending (I almost said grave concerns, get it? You DIG? Oh yes, I'm loopy), despite fears and misgivings about the quality of the writing toward the last third or so, I feel like the story itself is decent. And creepy. I seem to be ( Read more... )

Here's the paragraph I wrote. The next step will be to make this the beginning of a short story; I want to bring in fantasy or possibly horror elements, because that's the way I roll ( Read more... )

I have finally finished the new draft of my latest story, yeah, the one that was kicking my ass, and hey! I think it doesn't suck! Can't be sure at this point, but maybe! Cannot fracking wait to work on something new for a while. This one will rest for a couple of weeks, before I look at it again, and maybe even get some opinions on it.

( Long and unpolished post ahead. May be boring; you have been warned. )