To continue our discussion of the art of self-sabotage or procrastination, first we have to admit that we, as writers, sometimes want the aura of being a “writer” without any of the suffering that the title entails, all the hard work and self-doubt and isolation of being a writer. In his great book The War […]
Resistance is Futile! (part ii) Read More »
Writers get writers’ block. Happens to everyone at one point or another. It happens to some writers every day. Take me, for example. I struggle every day. Thanks to a recommendation from an old friend, I’ve been reading Steven Pressfield’s really great book The War of Art, which talks about resistance and how we
Resistance is Futile! (part i) Read More »
During a mentoring call in the Book Writing World, I had a breakthrough about writing detailed scenes, an AHA MOMENT that allowed me to internalize something I’ve known but didn’t quite know-know. Elizabeth’s exercise had us select a character and put him or her in a setting that the writer knows but the character doesn’t.
Show, Don’t Tell: Guest Blog by James Black! Read More »
Let’s talk pitch. It what you “do” when you’re trying to get an agent or editor’s attention regarding your finished book. You know what I’m talking about, the book you spent years on, perfecting, and now’s it’s ready to be read by the world and what’s more, embraced. In the Book Writing World, Elizabeth
Perfect Pitch: by Devi Laskar Read More »
As writers, we are just like Greek mythic sculptor Pygmalion and our books are like Galatea to us. We are attempting to create the most perfect book for our readers. In a recent mentoring workshop in the Book Writing World, Elizabeth drew from the author Gilbert Sorrentino’s piece, “The Moon in Its Flight,” located in
Pygmalion, revisited Read More »
In the Book Writing World, Elizabeth has discussed time and again the “big” ingredients it takes to write a complete narrative/story/book/memoir. Sometimes it can help to put the main ingredients into a single sentence, a sort of pithy recipe. This is different from a PITCH that is used to, well, invite/entice/beg agents and outsiders to
As writers, we sometimes struggle with creating “an inner life” or a range of emotions for our central characters. In an effort to have stories that reflect realistic people with actual problems, we as writers could inflict our obligations and inconveniences on our characters. In a recent Book Writing World mentoring class, Elizabeth instigated an
In the Book Writing World, we have learned this about story structure: “The CRISIS is when the choice is made and the CLIMAX is when the choice is acted on.” That sounds good. Now, to the difficult question: What are your chracter’s choices? What happens after your character makes the first set of choices? How
Every writer has voices inside his or head, angels counseling us what to write, what details to include, what generalities to omit. Most of us don’t actually hear these voices…but we aware of them as we grapple with character and plot development, and try to finish writing our books. In the Book Writing World, Elizabeth
Governing by Committee Read More »
Our “job” as writers is to describe, describe, describe. This means that we as writers have to take what we are imagining and place it on the written page – share it with our readers. Sounds easy enough. But writing is hard and often we leave out something that could turn an otherwise okay description
Sum of our opportunities Read More »
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