Scrabble tiles on a blue background

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In November, I decided to “sketch” the remaining sixteen scenes in my first draft without worrying about details like verb tense or punctuating dialogue. Then in mid-December, I began the work of finishing those scenes—and I’m almost done. […]
Runners in a track race near a ribbon that signifies the finish line

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I spent the past week finishing the final scene of the book. The time and place for the scene were present in the primeval outline of 2021, but the contents have shifted around quite a lot as I […]
Topographic view of a portion of southern New Hampshire

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I’m not regular about posting about what I’ve been writing, although writing happens every week as I try to meet my self-imposed deadline of finishing the first draft of a novel by the end of the year. A […]
A cartoon drawing of two men fighting, one has a leg raised, the other crouches with fist ready to strike

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This was a tough writing week for me. I felt like I was trying to squeeze water from a stone. For the past two weeks I’ve been working on a pivotal scene in which I know what I […]
William Faulkner holding a book in one hand and a pipe in the other hand

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I’m perhaps halfway through a first draft of the novel. That is (currently) about 79,000 words. Fifteen chapters have been completed at the draft level. Other chapters have sketches or outlines, while some are merely a virtual index […]
A young girl slides down a curving yellow slide at a playground

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A symbolic milestone for me this week: passing 70,000 words in my draft. I’ve been writing more in the last two months because I have given myself permission to write for longer than an hour each day (which […]
The words "teenage angst" are displayed over the misty outline of a teenage girl

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Writing workshops inspire me and fill me with new ways of thinking. They also leave me with a lot of critique comments to wrestle with. For the novel WIP, I often put comments in a file for later, […]
A man sits at a desk in front of a typewriter and holds his head in his hands

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This week I wrote almost 1000 words on the novel draft! I’m expanding a scene that I had only included as a one-paragraph flashback. I received feedback from a couple of people that this could be its own […]
A person wearing bight yellow gloves holds a pair of pruning shears next to a green hedge

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My writing this week consisted mostly of negative writing in the sense that I took words out of the WIP. That seems to be how it goes. Why? Sometimes I tell the reader too much about characters’ thoughts […]
The entrance to a bar with the name "Werewolf"

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I pushed myself this week to finish a scene so that a chapter would be more or less complete (first draft, that is). Even though I was busy with unpacking and starting a new writing class (Advanced Speculative […]