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Word Counts
My daily goal is 2000 words. A lot of the time I can make it, or even surpass it, but sometimes I fall short. Maybe my mental health isn’t the greatest that day. Maybe one of my chronic illnesses is acting up. Maybe my focus isn’t what it could be (and caffeine can only help…
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NaNoWriMo
I am doing NaNoWriMo this year. For those that don’t know, it stands for National Novel Writing Month, and the goal is to write 50,000 words in 30 days (November 1st to November 30th). I am doing awfully, if one were to keep score. But I’m not, and I don’t think most do, so I’m…
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Ideas
Where do ideas come from? It’s a question people ask authors all the time, and for the most part, we don’t know. We might be able to say what we were doing when the idea came, but the reality is they kind of arise out of nothingness, the way intrusive thoughts do. So, what is…
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Weaponizing Grammar
I’ll link the post where I talk about why it’s classist, ableist, racist, and rude to correct grammar because I’m here to expand on that topic. I covered those points well enough, but I just had someone report a spelling error in my book and I’m here to talk about why you should either ignore those…
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Savior of the Damned announcement
Starting November 4th and every Friday after, I’m releasing a new chapter of my upcoming novel, Savior of the Damned! In case you missed the last announcement, I’ve edited the book and sent it to a few beta readers, but I can’t afford to pay an editor to give it the TLC it deserves. So,…
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Writing Process
The only way I can get anything done is to break it into as small pieces as I possibly can. Thinking about all that goes into novel writing is overwhelming, even as I round up on finishing the first draft of my current novel. It’s so easy to get paralyzed when I consider everything, I…
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Podcast Story!
I submitted this a (long) while ago… and then forgot I even submitted it. Oops. Life has been rough and with everything on my plate, it slipped my mind. Well never fear, better late than never, right? I submitted a story to hauntedlypodcast.com about a real-life spooky event that happened to me some years ago.…
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Resting
Part of the creative process is knowing both when to rest and how. Resting recharges our batteries, and much like sleep helps refresh us so we can continue to do the creative things we do. The problem is, how do you do that? When I was growing up resting was when you just did nothing.…
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Tropes Versus Clichés
A lot of people have heard of tropes, and think they’re like cliches, but that’s not quite the same thing. Tropes can be clichés but only when they don’t vary at all. But let’s start with the definition of a cliché versus a trope. A cliché is defined as a trite, stereotyped expression by dictionary.com.…
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Rough Drafts
I’m on the last leg of the drafting process that will take me from a rough draft to a first draft. I’ve seen arguments against using the term “rough draft” as it’s still a first, but the reality is that, at least for me, the rough draft is in fact a rough draft. To…