Monica Valentinelli's Blog: booksofm.com, page 120

Day 14: The One Thing That "Just Doesn't Matter"

Well, we're just about to the halfway mark for the December Writing Marathon, and I have a "new" confession to make…

I stopped counting the number of words I'm revising and wading through, and am going to wait until the end to tally up my goals.

Why? Because the number of words doesn't matter to me as much right now. As a professional, I know I can comfortably write and edit between 20,000 and 30,000 words of original content in a month with a day job, provided there are no other roadblocks to ...

Day 13: Dealing With Holiday Stress

So here we are almost halfway through December and the words — my words — have been slowing down to a trickle. This week I had a problem with the number sixteen…sixteen inches of snow which translated to sixteen extra hours of commute time between driving, defrosting my car, etc. Additionally, this is my busiest season at Musicnotes.com, because we've got an immense collection of digital sheet music for the winter holidays that we're highlighting to help people find the songs they want to...

Day 7: Goals and Establishing a Routine

Well, it's the end of Week One for our December 2009 Writing Marathon. Today, I ask you to reflect on your goals and see how you're doing. Did you write a lot? Not enough? Did you end up doing penance like I did for your lack of writing?

Admittedly, I didn't get a lot done out of the gate. Why? Well, partially because Week One for me was about getting back into a well-balanced routine. The tricky thing, though, was that I was pretty far behind on my housework. (Six months behind.) Not to...

Day 3: Oh, How the Unexpected Thrills Me. How About You?

How's everyone doing so far? We're barely out of the gate, and already I've had an interesting couple of days. I think gremlins have invaded my home. While I haven't made a ton of progress yet, I'm still doing my due diligence and trying to get back into a routine. Translation? No filing yet. Hoo-ray for me!

Here's my account of the first, few days. I have to warn you, please don't call the grammar police. This was written in a very stream-of-consciousness sort of a way. Don't want a ticket f...

Let the December 2009 Writing Marathon Begin!

Are you ready for a marathon? I am!

My goal this month is to work on my revisions for my urban fantasy novel, which is loosely entitled ARGENTUM, a little bit each day, regardless of what else I have going on. This year has been a good year for me, because it's helped me understand where my limits are and just how difficult it is to balance paid work with speculative work. However, knowing where my boundaries are isn't the same thing as exercising within them. I'm hoping December will be...

Puking Content, Plagiarism and Too Much Free

I'm sure many of you have thought something along the lines of, "My gosh, there's a lot of misinformation on the internet." And you would be right.

I don't know about you, but I feel like it's too easy to get sucked into providing editorial on bad information to set the record straight. Of course, I'm speaking in generic terms here, but this is one of the reasons why a lot of people "puke content." The more content that gets written about a particular subject, the more saturated the topic...

[Form] Goal for December Writing Marathon 2009

If you're interested, I've created a form to collect your goals for the December Writing Marathon 2009. This form is anonymous and once you fill out the form, you can see the results.

Remember, if you want to be a part of the December 1st goal round-up on my blog, I will need a link to your blog post by Monday, November 30th. You can submit a link to your blog post to me via my Contact Form.

To fill out the form, please click on the "more" link below or submit your December Writing Marathon...

Guidelines and Rules for the December Writing Marathon

In my previous post entitled Who's Up for a December Writing Marathon? Some Proposed Rules, I offered some generic guidelines to see what you might think. Because December is a little over a week away, I'd like to share with you the specifics of this marathon. First? Some guidelines to help keep this marathon honest and fair.

What Is or Isn't Included?

Many of my fellow authors and game designers are under what's known as a non-disclosure agreement for our projects. For those of you who...

Who's Up for a December Writing Marathon? Some Proposed Rules.

I know that many of you might be writing for National Novel Writing Month, and if you are – I hope that it's going really well for you. Writing 50,000 words in a month is not an easy task, and it can be very exhausting. I knew that my schedule for November wasn't going to allow for NaNoWriMo, so I wasn't able to participate. Admittedly, I feel a little guilty about not making a concerted effort on my writing this month, even though I'm waiting to hear back on several projects.

So, in the...

Why Your D&D Game Doesn't Make a Great Novel

Have you heard the line, "Your D&D game won't make a great novel?" If you've heard me speak on panels before, or if you've read several submission guidelines from agents or publishers, you might have. I'd like to tackle why.

First, let's get all the bad mojo out there on the table by saying something completely untrue. "Oh, that evil publisher doesn't like gamers…" Several well-known authors I've met are either gamers themselves or their kids are. And by gamers, I mean everything from...