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Author Archives: Emanuella
Fail. Try Again. Fail Better.
I had a humbling experience in one of my classes today. I feel like a total idiot, a failure, but I don’t feel totally hopeless because at least I learned something. Here’s what happened: I’m taking a Serial Narrative class … Continue reading
Wannabe novelists should do NaNoWriMo
Last week I met three people who told me they were novelists, yet when I asked about their novels, I started hearing all these qualifying statements: ”Well, I only have twenty pages…” Or “I haven’t written it yet, but I plan … Continue reading
How to submit a short story
Congratulations, you’ve just finished a short story. Now what do you do with it? You want to be a published writer, but you have no idea how to do that. Well, here are some tips for what to do next: … Continue reading
Books that make you feel better
I was just thinking today about the stories I want to write and the stories I enjoy reading the most. I was trying to think about the common thread. It isn’t that I love fantasy or literary fiction or even … Continue reading
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It’s New Year’s Day!…all year round.
I wanted to say a little something about discipline because people have asked me what my writing schedule is like. I know some writers work every day at the same time of day. Joyce Carol Oates writes from 8:00 to … Continue reading
328,560 words
I wrote 2,801 new fiction words this week. I spent a lot of time editing and doing research.
Self-Editing for Fiction Writers
So you’ve just finished the first draft of a short-story or novel. Now what do you do? There are different theories about this. If you are a Heinlein Rules of Writing purist, than you’ll probably run your story through a spell-check, … Continue reading
The Art of Fiction
One of the books that has helped me the most as a novice writer is The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers by John Gardner. For several years I’d heard writers talk about The Art of Fiction, yet … Continue reading
How to Give Feedback
When I hand out early drafts for people to read my goal is to see if the movie playing in my head is the same movie playing in my reader’s head. The best kind of feedback I can get from … Continue reading