Posts Tagged ‘outline’
Revising on the Porch
A few readers have asked me what’s happening with my work-in-progress, The Lies We Told, due to be published next June, so I’m here with an update. I’ve shared with you the synopsis process, the outline process, the writing process, the revising process and the torturous rush-to-deadline process. That was followed by two weeks of…
Read MoreDeath by Bus
I’ve received a few anxious emails about my outline process from several writers who are at work on their first novels. They’re afraid an outline will suck the joy out of writing. They’re afraid it will somehow lock them in. They ask, “Doesn’t it kill your creativity to know what’s going to happen?” The answer is no, not even…
Read MoreOutline Finished. . . For Now
Wow, these cool new post it index cards sure do make my outlines neater! Kind of boring, compared to my old cut and paste method (see a picture of me with one of my old outlines on my gallery page). I have to say, this method is far more manageable! So I’m now ready…
Read MoreThe Synline? Outopsis?
Whatever you want to call it, it’s finished! In the last post, my usual optimism was showing when I said I’d finish the synopsis on Saturday and rest on Sunday, but here it is Monday and I just zipped it off to my agent a couple of hours ago. It’s long. When people ask me how…
Read MoreBeginning with the End
I started writing as a hobby when I was a hospital social worker a looong time ago (think typewriter and carbon paper. ugh). I thought that working on a novel, the idea for which I’d had in my mind from the time I was twelve years old, would be a fun pastime. After about six…
Read MoreKilling Your Babies
Oh, it hurts. I believe it was Ernest Hemingway who coined the title to this post. He was referring to those wonderful turns of phrase a writer comes up with that, in the final analysis, simply don’t belong in the story and must go. It’s painful to chop a few beautiful lines from what you’ve written,…
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