Writing Progress: Sometimes You Have To Start Over

Current Total Word Count: 11,613. Today I wrote on a day I’m supposed to be off the project.  I didn’t write yesterday.  There were just too many things going on. Not only that, I had to completely rethink the project. I’d written about 7 chapters of novel when I realized that I didn’t like the

3 Step Method to Finding and Fixing Plot Holes

My latest novel, The Terminarch Plot, is probably my most ambitious work yet.  I spent at least 6 months designing the backstory and various otherworldly settings where the series would take place. However, once the first novel was complete and off to the beta-readers, I was informed right away that there were several plot holes that

Your Rough Draft is Finished…Now What?

You’ve written a 50K plus novel.  It’s been a difficult road.  Perhaps you spent six months or six years, but it is finally done and you feel that sense of accomplishment that comes with completing such a monumental task. Now what? The following is my personal regimen that moves a rough draft to a finely

10 Things to Consider Before Writing a Novel

Currently life is preventing me from reaching my daily quota on my new writing project.  I suppose if I hadn’t considered a few rules to set for myself before I began this project, I would be spinning my wheels in the endless morass of counter-productivity. I set some basic ground rules before I began writing,

Ugly Errors: 5 Reasons Why Writers Must Learn to Revise

As Taylor Mali illustrates so eloquently in the above video, writers should stop relying on spell check to edit their writing for them and start learning how to revise. One of the best books on the market for self-editing is by Renni Browne and Dave King: Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself Into