Terry Shames's Blog: 7 Criminal Minds, page 97

An Appetite for Construction (of sentences)

 by Abir

Share your favourite writing snack or drink – one that gets you moving when you're stuck or allows you to relax after a time spent “butt in chair.”

 

Well this is an interesting question. It seems almost tailored to me because I’m fat and lazy and rely on a conveyor belt of snack and hot beverages to get me through the day. So let’s start at the beginning.

 

I’ll get up at around 6.30 and make my wife a coffee. Me making her the first coffee of the day has become a bit of a ritual in our hou...

Happy Thanksgiving!

It just so happens that my work-in-progress, the as yet untitled Last Ditch No. 5 starts on Thanksgiving Day. So, since I've got pies to make (it's yesterday) I thought I'd share the opening scene:

NOTE: these are the opinions of a fictional character, Lexy Campbell, not the opinion of the grateful and greedy author.

Chapter 1

 ‘Should I slice some pears?’ I asked.

‘No!’ bellowed Noleen.

‘Can I slice some pears?’

‘No!’ bellowed Noleen again, if an official bellow can be that high-pitched.

‘There’s no n...

A guest post by Rob Pierce

Rob Pierce wrote the novels Blood by Choice, Tommy Shakes, Uncle Dust, With The Right Enemies, the novella Vern In The Heat, and the short story collection The Things I Love Will Kill Me Yet. Rob has also edited dozens of novels for All Due Respect and freelance, and has had stories published in numerous ugly magazines.

He’s here tackling this week’s topic: Share your favorite writing snack or drink – one that gets you moving when you're stuck or allows you to relax after a time spent “butt in ch...

Who Wants a Snack?

 

Terry Shames here, answering this week’s question: Share your favorite writing snack or drink – one that gets you moving when you're stuck or allows you to relax after a time spent “butt in chair.” 
I suspect a lot of people would say chocolate, but although I like chocolate, I don’t think of it a “writing” snack. It’s more of a rare treat. In fact, I don’t think of food as a motivator for writing. Not to say I won’t reach for a snack, but not to get myself moving when I’m stuck. It’s just fo...

Fuelling the Muse

Share your favorite writing snack or drink – one that gets you moving when you're stuck or allows you to relax after a time spent “butt in chair."

Brenda Chapman

I have to think about this one since I type away at my keyboard at all times of the day and night. I don't usually eat or drink while I'm working unless it's a cup of coffee or glass of water at my elbow.

My day normally starts with two cups of coffee and a bowl of plain yoghurt with a handful of defrosted blueberries and raspberries. That...

Flying Down Blind Alleys by Josh Stallings

 Q: Have you ever tossed out 20,000 words from a work in progress? Why, and was it, in hindsight, the right move?

“A wall is just a door you haven’t pushed on hard enough.” Regular advice my mother gave me. It’s true, except when the wall is made of bricks. I have the scarred knuckles to prove that some walls don’t open. 

More than once I’ve kept writing on a section that I knew wouldn’t survive to the final MS because I had a sense it would lead me to important discoveries. 

Sometimes when I get s...

Book Learnin', by Catriona

CRAFT: Have you ever tossed out 20,000 words from a work in progress? Why, and was it, in hindsight, the right move?

This question strikes me as both very specific (20K) and quite heartfelt. I'm assuming the Mind who asked it has done just that.

Have I done it?

Probably, but not in one fell swoop. A Gingerbread House took eleven drafts before it was ready to go, and as they swelled and shrank I must have tossed out more than twenty thousand words overall.

 To give you an idea, here are just the firs...

The growth of a manuscript... by Cathy Ace

CRAFT: Have you ever tossed out 20,000 words from a work in progress? Why, and was it, in hindsight, the right move?

Not 20,000, but I just did this with about 3,000 words in my most recent book, and, yes, it was worth it (I hope…I think…eek…did I do the right thing? Were they the right 3,000 words to cut/change…now you’ve got me going again – thank you!).

BACKSTORY/PROCESS:

First draftMy first draft (which really is my first draft, not my fifteenth, or anything like that) ran to (searches to c...

Slashing your Darling Flashbacks...

 Have you ever tossed out 20,000 words from a work in progress? Why, and was it, in hindsight, the right move?

From Frank

Yes. Well, over 17K, anyway.

(Some minor spoilers here for River City #3, Beneath a Weeping Sky , by the way).

The first two River City novels ran 66,000 and 68,000 words, respectively. The first "final" draft (ready for beta readers) of  Beneath a Weeping Sky (BaWS) ran a whopping 150,000 words.

Yes, 150K. A little over, actually.

To be fair, the story was more complex. The charact...

Advice to Take, or Not

 Q: Have you ever tossed out 20,000 words from a work in progress? Why, and was it, in hindsight, the right move?

- from Susan

 

Yes, and it’s a story with a happy ending. You always hear that you have to write your own book, that is, not bend to trends, other people’s notions of what your story should be, the demands of the market or, specifically, your agent. That’s good advice, but sometimes you don’t see it happening until you’re, metaphorically, lost in the weeds.

 

I was inspired to write a lig...