Bev Pettersen's Blog, page 34
February 15, 2018
Digging Yourself Out
I’m from Alaska, which means every winter I see someone slide into ditch or a snowbank. Sometimes the snow and ice just win (especially if you aren’t paying attention to conditions or don’t know how to drive in them). Similarly, there comes a time in every writer’s life when their manuscript goes into the ditch, metaphorically speaking. Or maybe not every writer’s life and if you’ve never high centered your manuscript on a snowbank, more power to you – but I certainly have. I just get stu...
February 13, 2018
Winter Writing Festival Week 5 check in
First order of business. Do NOT give up chocolate for Lent this year. Not with all that wonderful Valentine’s Day chocolate out there waiting for us. And do NOT give up writing for Lent. If you’re a writer in your DNA and your marrow, you can’t give up writing any more than you can give up breathing.
Second order of business. How is it going? We only have two weeks left in the Winter Writing Festival. Are you meeting your goals? Hitting speed...
February 11, 2018
When the New Year’s Not So New Anymore
Well…it’s here. 2018 is in full swing.
New Year’s resolutions have likely gone by now, swept away by the surge of life that always manages to interfere with our good intentions. For those of us who opted for a weight loss goal, there’s been the torture of the food festivus that is Superbowl Sunday and the outpouring at every location you can imagine of sweet-faced Girl Scouts hawking their wares. For those of us looking to set a new savings goal there’s likely been an awesome MLK weekend sale...
February 8, 2018
Striving for a Personal Best – The Olympics!
I love the Olympics. Not for the thirty minutes of human interest packages you get for every ninety seconds of actual sports. Not for the national pride of chanting “U-S-A” or hearing the national anthem or counting how many medals we have versus other countries. None of that stuff has ever mattered to me – which just goes to show I am not the target demographic for most Olympic programming – but still I love the Olympics. Because of the heart of the athletes. Because of the dreams.
Every...
February 6, 2018
It’s Time for the Winter Writing Festival WEEK 4 Check In!
Happy check in and welcome to Week 4! How are we already here – a month into the festival?! We’re at that stage where we’ve had some wins and some hiccups, some forward progress and some maddening slow downs. That’s normal!! And the reality of the job. The important thing is to keep our eyes on the end goal – forward progress. If you have had a few bumps in the road, don’t worry. A new week’s here to reset your goals and keep moving forward. In the meantime, here’s to the Week 4 check in. If...
February 5, 2018
Research for contemporaries: the intersection of Oklahoma!, lady umpires, and autism
I love research. I’m one of those authors who will spend so much time in research that I delay to dive into the writing for way too long. Maybe that’s procrastination, but I’d rather believe it comes from a deeper need to be so familiar with my characters’ backstories that the words just flow.
My first book was a YA time-travel, half in 1796 and half now. To get the 18th-century girl’s viewpoint right, I visited museums, experimented with colonial recipes and dances, even tried on reproductio...
February 1, 2018
Learning a Hard Lesson – Catastrophic Hard Drive Failure
Happy Friday, everyone!
How was your week? Mine started off like this:
“Let me show you this hilarious clip I saw on facebook,” I said to my 19yo daughter. I brought over my Lenovo Thinkpad laptop and lifted the lid. The normal Lenovo sign in red popped up on the normal black background. We waited. And waited. I did a hard shut off and closed the lid, waited a few seconds and reopened. With the same results. Crap.
My hubby wasn’t home, so I started texting him with lots of panicky exclamatio...
January 31, 2018
How to Get “Tight” (Ruby Reprise)
“Needs tightening.” My least favorite comment. I hate tightening. Hate it at the gym. Hate it with my household budget. Really, really hate it with my writing. I love the luxuriance of books, the lavishness of language. Back in first grade, I always needed extra sheets of story-paper for Writing Time, and never got around to drawing the stupid picture. My very first completed romance-novel chapter? Thirty-five pages long. Yup, thirty-five. Even Charles Dickens would cringe.
Years ago,...
January 30, 2018
It’s WEEK THREE check in time!
Happy check in day, friends!
I know week three has come and gone. Crazy, isn’t it? Didn’t we just get started?
If you’re like me, you may have had some set backs. Weekends are particularly tough for me because, um, family. They’re so demanding. They like to be fed and have clean clothes and stuff. And, if I’m being honest, I’ve been binge-watching Game of Thrones and addictions to television programs can also be demanding. They call to me – “Liz, come sit down for thirty minutes. Half an epis...
January 28, 2018
I WORKED ON MY MIDDLE IN DIAPERS
We’re three weeks into the Winter Writing Fest and whether your writing, plotting, or editing your middle could be a bit dull
Let me tell you what I know about story middles.
They can be expanded into a huge massive saga and not hold one ounce of story muscle. Or, they can be elusive and cause the author to stare at the muse-sucking blinking cursor. Yet, they can be so wonderfully written and with every page the reader is drawn into the world you’ve built, and slowly, they become emotionally...
