When you are writing a book, you must learn to listen very closely for what editor Tom Jenks calls the heartbeat of the story. Sometimes you may confuse your own heartbeat with the narrative heartbeat. If you allow your emotional highs and lows to push you around–they may also end up pushing around your prose. Your anxiety, exhaustion, or mania may show up on the page. It’s not that you shouldn’t use your own experience to connect with characters–you should. Your fears and the fears of your protagonist are the same when it comes to their deepest nature. Your shared …
Author: Sarah Lovett
Asimov’s Inspiration
“If my doctor told me I only had six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster.” Isaac Asimov
Unplugged
Absolutely Do Not Let Fear Stop You From Writing Your Stories
“I don’t think you have time to waste not writing because you are afraid you won’t be good at it.” Anne Lamott
“Tell your story by introducing the disequilibrium in your character’s internal, external, and interpersonal world in the right order and with the right timing for this specific story.” Steven James
“There is No Greater Agony…”
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” Maya Angelou
Don’t Be a Writer
“Don’t be a writer. Be writing.” William Faulkner
Scared to Write Your Book? Let Your Fears Be Your Guides to Success
Afraid of writing your book because…? Go ahead and jot down a list of your worst fears. Scared of dying? Scared of failing? Scared of finding out you can’t write your way out of a paper bag? (Who needs to do that, anyway?) Scared of hurting others with your words? Scared of contaminating the world with darkness? Scared you’ll find out you’re a monster? Scared you’re just too scared to do anything? Fears. We all have them. You can’t put them in a bottle and cork it. You can’t reason with them. But you can shift your relationship to your …
@NaNoWriMo2015-Get to the Heart of Your Story (writing tip #30)
Okay, so technically this 30th NaNoWriMo post comes to you on December 1. (Even if I pretend that I’m writing this in Honolulu, we are still minutes into the last month of the year.) So I’m opting for flexible and sending out congratulations to all who wrote their way through November. Hopefully, depending upon where you are in the world–catching up on your ZZZZZZs, watching the sun rise, or midway through your day–you are celebrating your accomplishment. There is more writing to be done, more drafts of your novel (more screenplays, essays, short stories, memoirs). We writers write, rewrite, edit, …
#NaNoWriMo2015-Get to the Heart of Your Story (writing tip #29)
I’m finishing some work at my desk tonight, listening to Eva Cassidy’s gorgeous cover of Cyndi Lauper’s aching “Time After Time”. Cassidy performed this version at the Blues Alley club in Georgetown, DC, ten months and one day before her death. She was 33 when she died from melanoma in 1996. “Lying in my bed I hear the clock tick, And think of you …” Lauper’s song and this recording by Cassidy overflow with yearning. Writers understand there is no story without yearning. Take five minutes to listen to Cassidy’s recording. It’s hard to listen only once. Look up Lauper’s lyrics …