It didn’t feel right to talk about this before I finished my graduate school work. So, here I am in this candid moment to tell you about balancing graduate school and writing. I don’t feel the most qualified, as I don’t have an agent, don’t have anything published, and have trunked a project. But I did write 2+ books in 15 months, so that’s…something.
Part 2 of a 4-part series about my writing process and learnings. The first part was about going on a hiatus. This second part is about my discovery that I am not a “pantser” whatsoever.
Originally, this was going to be about how I always hit a point in my writing where I want to delete my book. Turns out, it was just a symptom of burning out. So, I’m talking about the necessity to take a break sometimes and common thought processes that can interrupt it.
(Photo by Ilham Rahmansyah on Unsplash)
For whatever reason, my to-do post came up blank. Anyway, for spring break from graduate school, I went to Portland, OR for 9 days to get back into writing. Here is an overview of what I did while I was there and why it was so necessary. Continue reading
My first language is Polish, the most comma-happy language ever. If I were to write that first sentence, there would be one after “Polish” and before “ever.” English doesn’t work this way. For clarity’s sake, commas are so helpful and I get into back-and-forth edits about them too often. Here are some tips.
Yeah, I haven’t blogged since the first Reading Recap, so I’m doing a quick dump on a tip that really is helping me churn some words out a day in the middle of readings, assignments, etc. I’m going to use headlines from my consumer insights class because my mind is breaking in real time.
Recently, I went to an event with the amazing Victor LaValle and we talked about the course in introductory novel writing that he teaches. What stuck out to me was that he said that many beginner writers lack focus in this work. There’s an . And I realized that that was totally true about my work during the first draft, way back in college when my writing was actual trash.
Deleting words is just as important as writing them. When you’re trying to hit that desired 50,000, 75,000, 100,000 or whatever word count, you’re not focused on things to keep and get rid of. I have two tips on how to get rid of excess words. One takes work, the other is self-explanatory.
I’ve just finished playing Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age II and reading A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab. Both books tackle the idea of having blood magic, which gives me food for thought as I develop the seven main magical systems in my work.
This is my contribution to the fact that it is Valentine’s Day today. I’m going to focus on three couples that are almost formative in my idea of what romance is.
Jo Writes Fantasy 