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My writing ritual (warning: it ain’t pretty)
Happy IWSG Day! For those who are new here, I participate in the monthly Insecure Writers Support Group blog hop. Details and signup here. This month’s optional question is: Do you have any rituals that you use when you need help getting into the zone? I hope my fellow IWSG-ers have some great responses to this question. I need all the ideas I can get, because right now my ritual for getting in the zone is pretty simple: sit my butt down in front of my computer and get to work. I wrote about that process in a post last December. Part of why I don’t employ much in the…
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Celebrate the Small Things!
I have just joined the Celebrate the Small Things blog hop. The rules are simple: each Friday, post about something you want to celebrate achieving/doing that week. This week I’m celebrating the fact that I submitted a short story to an online magazine. Big deal, right? But for me it is. Until about a year ago, I’d never shown anyone my fiction. Since then, I’ve joined a critique group, entered (and won!) a literary contest, and, just this year, submitted two pieces for publication. Will my two submissions get published? Maybe, maybe not. In both cases, I submitted to markets that are a little out of my league, but then…
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Photo safari through a historic Flagstaff neighborhood
My first novel, Vanishing, Inc., is set in a fictional mountain town in Arizona called Ponderosa. I live in Flagstaff, a not-so-fictional mountain town in Arizona that makes an appearance in my story, but since I’m writing a paranormal romance (a time travel romance, to be specific), I wanted the freedom of a fictional setting. I don’t want some overly-literal reader leaving me a one-star review because there are, in fact, no time portals in Flagstaff. Hey, you know it could happen. I’m sure plenty of tourists have walked through standing stones in Scotland and become very grumpy because they did not immediately find themselves in the arms of a lusty…
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Q is for Quotes (#AtoZChallenge)
Back when I started this month-long challenge, I said the theme would be discovery, and I would write about the the things I’ve discovered during coronavirus lockdown. I’m always discovering stuff. When I was a kid, I did what most kids do: find random stuff and bring it home and hoard it like Blackbeard’s treasure. I don’t collect stuff now (unless we’re talking about plants…), but I do collect random bits of information and save it in my journal. One of my favorite things to save this way is quotes. I have pages and pages of quotes I’ve copied down. Each one spoke to me at the moment I found…
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The Art of Writing an Epic Blog Post
The author of this post demonstrates the techniques he’s talking about… with this post. I love the clear, practical advice in an easily-digested format. Highly recommended. Be honest. You often dream of writing an epic blog post, the kind that gets shared thousands of times, liked, tweeted, and pinned, commented on by … The Art of Writing an Epic Blog Post
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Skip the resolutions – set goals instead
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0XGlXSW45Y] I don’t make New Years resolutions, and for the most part I never have. You can’t fail if you don’t try, right? Yeah, there’s your inspirational quote for 2020. Seriously, I don’t make New Years resolutions, because I can only make major life changes successfully when I am truly ready, not when the calendar says it’s time for self-improvement. What I do set at the beginning of each year, though, are goals. What’s the difference between a resolution and a goal? Glad you asked! Resolutions vs. goals A resolution is a commitment, usually broken by MLK Day, to start or stop a habit or make some other big…
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Lessons from #NaNoWriMo
So I managed to write 50,000 words in November. See that shiny NaNoWriMo winner’s badge? Yeah, I earned that. Yeah. I did. Me. Winner. [thumps chest] I won NaNo once previously, in 2014 when I was drafting a novel called Vanishing, Inc. that still isn’t quite done yet because I’ve been revising it since 2015. sigh Anyway, I was proud of myself then, but this NaNo feels even more satisfying, because it was so much harder. Some days it felt like I was doing nothing more than spewing verbal vomit all over my screen, solely because I wanted to get those damn 50,000 words (Which I did. Me. Winner. Thumps…
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Living the Dream
The December question for the Insecure Writers Support Group Blog Hop is: Let’s play a game. Imagine. Role-play. How would you describe your future writer self, your life and what it looks and feels like if you were living the dream? Or if you are already there, what does it look and feel like? Tell the rest of us. What would you change or improve? I imagine this a lot. Usually when I should be writing. While other middle-aged straight women fantasize about Brad Pitt or The Rock and a bathtub full of Jell-O, I daydream about hitting it big as a writer. Book tours! Interviews! Swanky cocktail parties!…
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External validation (or, I won, I won, I won!)
For several weeks, I’ve mulled over how to share the biggest announcement in my writing career to date (translation: I’ve been procrastinating as usual). Do I write some important-sounding essay on how you should put yourself and your writing out there, because doing so might just pay off? Should I announce it like a press release, making sure to include the phrase, “award-winning author” at least twice? Should I dip my head demurely and modestly thank everyone from God to my fourth-grade teacher the way actors do at the Oscars? Nah. I’m going to squee all over this dang post like a thirteen-year-old with her first boyfriend. I won. I…
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10 Tips for Improving Your Academic Writing
Thanks to Louis at Thematically Meandering: Learning to Write for the opportunity to write a guest post. Head on over there to to read my post, 10 Tips for Improving Your Academic Writing, and while you’re there, check out some of Louis’ great work.
Janet Alcorn
Suspense | Horror | Romance
