KEEP THE ELEPHANT IN YOUR LAP

I turned thirty in a dinghy on the River Ganga, while a full moon and the fires from the corpses in the burning ghats illuminated the shores of the holy city of Varanasi. That trip to India years ago changed my life. I glimpsed my own mortality, dodged snake charmers and lepers, paid homage to living goddesses and glassy-eyed sadhus. I also met Ganesha, the elephant riding the mouse. Ganesha, the son of Shiva and Parvati and one of the most revered and popular Hindu deities, is also known as the Lord of Success, the god of wealth, wisdom and …

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THE WORD ON WORD COUNT

If you’re about to query agents about your debut novel and the word count tops 150k, land here first: The Swivet. Agent Colleen Lindsay lays out the basics by category. Bottomline–less is more. The average word count for a novel? Between 80k and 100k, with YA running between 50k and 80k. 

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THE FORCE FIELD OF RELATIONSHIP

Writers talk a lot about viewpoint characters. The story is told from her viewpoint. Or his viewpoint. Or both their viewpoints.  Sometimes we become so focused on maintaining a strict viewpoint, we forget that narrative is about relationships.   Relationships. Interactions. Exchanges. Collisions. Between people. And between a person and her world.  When you write your next scene imagine an energy field or aura surrounding each of your characters. As you write, put your attention in the space where these energy fields collide.  Now imagine an energy field (or a thousand different fields) coming from the physical world–the birds singing …

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SECRETS & LIES – Daily Writing

If you are writing fiction and you want to spark a two-character scene and/or a short story, endow one character with a secret and the other with a lie. Now let them interact without either one revealing the truth. Too lazy or virtuous to come up with something juicy? Visit the Post Secret website for inspiration. It’s one of my favorite “writerly” sites online.

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CREATIVE BANKING

Last week, in the midst of a busy coaching schedule, a busy writing schedule, and my always busy family life, I took time out for some creative banking. I don’t mean I did some funny business with my income tax prep. I do mean I took stock of past, present, and future writing projects, and I discovered how much I have in my creative “bank”. If you’ve been writing for any length of time, you have projects you’ve left simmering on the back-burner and projects you’ve just plain left behind because it was time to move on. Those that are …

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A Tip for the Day–AHA!

Today’s writing tip is a simple way to avoid “math anxiety” when it comes to reviewing scenes: Remember that your primary character has an objective in each scene. That goes for other characters who are active in the scene. Objectives change–and they may begin as reactive (as in your character reacting to something that happens) but ultimately that reaction translates into action, subtle or profound.  These are also called scene goals–each character has her own goal in each scene, and those goals are most often in conflict because we want conflict in story. When it comes to opening scenes, another …

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TREBLE THE TROUBLE

Writing fiction? Then Les Edgerton’s nifty book, HOOKED, is a great choice for your holiday gift list. (If you’re like me, you play secret Santa and buy yourself a few pounds of libros for the holidays.) Edgerton covers well-traveled ground when it comes to the how-to of structure. But he does it by focusing intensely on the basics of story setup–the opening hooks and problems–that directly connect to deep story structure.  Edgerton defines the Inciting Incident–a term often used in the language of screenplays–as something that “happens to the protagonist that creates his surface problem and introduces the first indications …

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QUOTE OF THE DAY–DIGGING FOR DEMONS

I’ve taken today’s quote from Les Edgerton’s nifty book HOOKED: Write fiction that grabs readers at page one and never lets them go.   “The best sources for significant story problems reside within yourself in the form of your personal demons. The very best writers are those who are courageous enough to go deep inside themselves to face and expose the warts and hidden and forbidden feelings most of us want to hide from or deny, at least to others. Not everyone is able to face his demons and bring them out to the light of day, but if you …

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THE RANT!!!

When was the last time you had a really truly terrible sucky day? One of those worst days, when everything went wrong and you felt defensive and angry and backed into a corner? Maybe you really were backed into a corner–by your best friend or by the driver who cut you off in the parking lot and then waved a single digit your way. Maybe the bad stuff lasted a few hours or a few minutes; either way, by the end you were ready to blow your stack and rant! I’ve had my share of bad streaks and the rants …

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POWER OF CONNECTION, DISCONNECTION

It took me most of my life to realize I use a conversational style in my household that I call “passing ships”. (Actually my husband pointed it out.) I  talk on the move, beginning a question on one side of the house and finishing it on the other. A bad habit, and I’m working to correct it. It is especially interesting because each week I spend hours on the phone talking with clients and I love giving them my full attention. No double-tasking, no daydreaming, just my full attention. And yet I’ve been lazy with my family.  I thought about …

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