Kaye Dacus's Blog, page 56

#NaNo Tips: “Stealing” Writing Time

Awhile back, I was at a church where the pastor’s sermon topic was on tools to becoming a more godly parent. (Needless to say, as a single, childless person, if I’d known ahead of time this is what the topic was going to be, I probably would have found a way to keep from being […]

NaNoWriMo—What If You Get Stuck/Blocked?

Originally posted on KayeDacus.com:
According to the NaNo word-count matrix, yesterday, you should have hit right around 10,000 words on your Story-in-Progress (SIP). That’s a good chunk of writing—20% of your manuscript if you’re aiming for a finished length of 50k words. But what if you didn’t hit 10k yesterday? What if you did…

What Are You Reading? (November 2014)

Happy First Monday of November, everyone. It’s Reading Report time! . Tell us what you’ve finished over the last month, what you’re currently reading, and what’s on your To Be Read stack/list. And if you’ve reviewed the books you’ve read somewhere, please include links! To format your text, click here for an HTML cheat-sheet. If […]

Finding Your Beginning in “The End”: Ending Your Beginning

And now we come to the point at which we actually discuss finding your beginning in the ending of your story. (And only the sixth post of the series? So soon?) ;-) Readers of the Lost Arcs When you finish writing the ending of your story, ask yourself these questions: How did my characters get […]

Finding Your Beginning in “The End”: The Importance of Finishing Your First Draft

If you know the ending of a story, you’ll know the beginning, but if you know the beginning, you won’t necessarily know the ending. –Steven James, Story Trumps Structure (p. 34) . You know my mantra: Above all else, FINISH YOUR FIRST DRAFT More than going to conferences, more than reading how-to books to help […]

Finding Your Beginning in “The End”: Dreaming of Writing a Perfect Opening

Or, How NOT to Begin Your Story Never, ever, ever begin a narrative with action and then reveal the character’s merely dreaming it all. Not unless you’d like your manuscript hurled across the room, accompanied by a series of curses. Followed by the insertion of a form rejection letter into your SASE and delivered by […]

Finding Your Beginning in “The End”: Are You a Trustworthy Writer?

Have you ever picked up a book, read a few paragraphs, and then put it down (or thrown it down) in disgust or disappointment because there was a historical error or a page and a half of backstory or head hopping? What happened is that you discovered you couldn’t trust the author. Something to keep […]

Finding Your Beginning in “The End”: Is Writing the Perfect First Line Really a Big Deal?

At the end of the previous post, I posed a few questions: Why are first lines more memorable than last lines? Are first lines more important than last lines? Why are there so many more books, articles, blog posts, etc., published about writing first lines/openings than there are about writing last lines/endings? What’s your favorite […]

There and Back Again: Finding Your Beginning in “The End” (new series)

Match up the First Line, Last Line, and Book Title from these ten works of classic literature: First Lines Last Lines Books 1. All children, except one, grow up. A. “…my life now, my whole life apart from anything that can happen to me, every minute of it is no more meaningless, as it was […]

Fun Friday: AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON teaser trailer!!!

So, this happened this week . . . Filed under: Fun Friday, Fun Stuff