Writing Short: A lesson on novella writing

Hello there, Sugar here. I recently finished writing my first holiday novella. (Look out for Have Yourself a Curvy Little Christmas sometime in the late fall.) After the initial excitement of being asked to write for my publisher again, I panicked a little. I write single titles. Long single titles. Dangerous Curves Ahead weighs in at over one hundred thousand words. I’ve never written anything under ninety thousand words.

But they were asking me to tell a story in twenty-five thousand words. TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND WORDS. Gulp. How the hell was I going to pull that off? But you know what? I did. Okay so maybe I went over by a few thousand, but I manage to tell a story using a quarter of the words I normally do.

How did I do it? I kept these five things in mind when I was writing.

1. KISS: Keep it Simple Stupid. Your idea should be simple and solid.

SIMPLE: A man reunites with the woman who left him at the alter. Together they rediscover their love for each other and learn to put the past behind them.

NOT SIMPLE : A man reunites with the woman who left him at the alter. He learns she was abducted by aliens who plan to take over the world by impregnating all brunettes under the age of forty. Only to find that her pregnancy didn’t take because she half mutant.   Together they travel through time and space in an effort to stop the world from being taken over and to learn more about her secret origins.

2. Cut out all the descriptive stuff.

Yes, please do give us a clue to the setting, but don’t describe the lushness of the trees and the greenness of the grass and how the hot summer wind blows across the field and gently rustles the curtains.

In other words tell the damn story.

3. The less subplot the better.

You really don’t need to introduce us to a cast of thousands. We don’t need to know all the townspeople and their historys, foibles and quirks. We don’t need to know that Mrs. Peasly, your hero’s favorite teacher, is going to lose her house and needs a million dollars to save it. Focus on the main conflict at hand.

4. Limit backstory.

Backstory can be an important tool to let the reader know your hero’s motivation, but don’t overdo it. Sprinkle, don’t dump.  

5. Cut. Cut. Cut.

Don’t be afraid to chop out passages or entire scenes. Think about every word you write. Ask yourself, “Is this necessary to tell my story?” And if the answer is no get rid of it.

That’s all I’ve got, so I’m turning it over to you, my writer friends. What advice would you give on how to write short? Any and all comments are welcome! 

Word Count Vs. Word Perfect by Katy Lee

Hello all, Katy Lee here. I wish I could say I was a natural speed writer, but alas, I cannot. Actually, though, I’m okay with that because for me it’s more important to know I have a strong, healthy story concept that will hold its weight during the writing process and not get shelved halfway through. The story may not get written lightning fast, but it WILL get written.

Are you with me?

Great, because I’m about to bring up the concept of plotting. Now don’t runaway yet! Here me out. I used to be a pantser, thinking all I needed was inspiration, creative juices, and a hero/heroine that would tell me their story along the way. Well, that worked for the first book, but when I was presented with an opportunity to pitch to a big publisher, I knew I couldn’t let it pass me by—even if the story didn’t exist yet. (Shhh…don’t tell anyone) But it was because the story wasn’t written that I knew I didn’t have all the time in the world to get the word count on the page this time around. This time, I only had eight weeks to complete it. It was time to get serious as a professional writer.

Now this doesn’t mean writing had to become so strict that I didn’t enjoy the creative process anymore. I may plot out the skeleton form of my story with all its plot turns and dark moments, and I may write the opening and closing scenes before I begin, but I’m open to surprises along the way to keep it fun, too.

E.L. Doctorow once said plotting is like “driving a car at night, when you can’t see beyond the headlights but somehow you get through the night.” When I’m plotting, I plot ahead only as far as the “headlights” shine. Typically, about three scenes in advance. All my turning points guide me along the way, but I still have flexibility for when those delightful surprises pop up. Plus, I know I’m not leading my characters off a cliff. But wait, actually, that’s not a bad idea. I could use that. (Just kidding…sort of.)

Anyway, the point is you will stay on track, and because you know what’s coming, your excitement to get your characters to those moments—so they can become larger-than-life and shine for your readers, too—pushes you like no other motivation to type through to The End.

Now plotting has not made me type faster, as in words per minute, but I don’t get “slowed up” as much as I used to. I don’t have long stretches of wasted time because of not having a clue where the story is going. Now when I start a story, I feel very confident that it will be completed in a professional amount of time.

Of course, there is a downside to all of this. It might mean more book contracts each year, and editors calling when they need a special project in a pinch. But, I’ll let you make that call for yourself.

The Unlocked Secret: Make those words count. It’s good to have a daily word count, but wouldn’t it be grand if those words on the page were word perfect right from the start? Are you still with me?

Trust Your Story

Tuesday’s Scribe, PJ Sharon here. Have you ever been writing along, minding your plot and meeting your daily word count, only to have your character take you “off track”? Do you catch yourself swearing at your characters and asking them, “Where the *&%*@# are you taking me?” Well, let me tell you…I’ve learned to let them have their way—at least on the first draft. Let me explain why.

After several manuscripts and three or four published novels, I’m finally beginning to trust my internal process. It seems that my unconscious mind knows a lot more about my characters than my conscious mind does and if I let the story evolve organically—rather than trying to control every word that lands on the page—some miraculous things happen. Characters take me to the most interesting places, and if I go along for the ride, there is usually some grand reason they needed to go there. A piece of the puzzle is found, a character flaw is brought to light, or an opportunity for character growth presents itself.

When I wrote ON THIN ICE a few years ago, Penny’s story unfolded and jumped onto the page with such abandon, it seemed as if it was writing itself. I hadn’t planned on all the twists and turns that her story would take, but as it developed and each thread wove itself into her character arc, I had no choice but to follow and see how everything came together in the end. Amazingly, her journey turned out to be profoundly complex and beautiful. Of course, my problem was then trying to sell a story that had multiple subplots and more drama than a season of Dallas.

I had several published authors, a few agents, and even a couple of editors tell me the same thing…get rid of at least two—preferably three—of the subplots. I was told “One teenager could not possibly deal with all of these issues and one or two is enough for any one book if you want to explore them in depth.” So I tried to unravel my plot to remove some of the “unnecessary” subplots. The problem was that I couldn’t. I struggled for several months trying to make the story “marketable” by choosing one story line and then bleeding all over the page for 250 pages. I couldn’t make it work. Deconstructing the story seemed like an impossible task without it losing that special something that made it unique and authentic. Worse, was that it felt like I wasn’t being true to my character. Penny needed to go through all the trials and tribulations she endured in order to become the person she was at the end of the story. It was her journey—not mine—and I didn’t feel right about robbing her of any of the experiences that made her who she was.

Ultimately, I shelved the story and began writing Heaven Is For Heroes, which turned out to be a much more “marketable” story, but by that time, I had decided that the kind of stories I wanted to write were likely not going to fit into a specific mold and that I wasn’t willing to have a traditional publisher “brand” me (ouch!) and put me in a “box” (NO…Not the box!). Enter—Indie publishing.

One of the many things that drew me to Indie pubbing was the freedom to be true to the creative process and write what is in my heart. I’m convinced that there are readers for every well-written book—even if/especially if—it fits outside the box. Why should readers be fed only stories that publishers have deemed saleable? As it turns out, many Indie authors are finding great success because they are taking risks and writing something different. The upsurge in the “New Adult” market proves that readers of all ages want something new–stories that bridge the gap between YA and adult romance–stories about what happens when young adults are faced with real life issues that push them into adulthood.

Although I’ve learned to rein in my characters a bit before they take me too far off course or lead me into some corner I can’t get out of, I’ve also learned to trust my story to take me where my characters need to go to become who they are meant to be—even if it takes me places I never dreamt I’d go. I’ve gotten better at plotting and planning rather than flying by the seat of my pants, but the real joy in writing for me is when my characters take over and lead me on an adventure greater than my mind could have imagined.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart if you’ve already read the book. I greatly appreciate all honest reviews. If you haven’t yet left a review and would like to do so, you can click on the Amazon link below and write a brief line or two about what you liked/or didn’t like about the book. This helps other readers find books that might appeal to them and helps us authors reach new readers. 

So what did you think? Was it too much drama for one book, or did it somehow all work together to make a worthwhile and unique story?

If you haven’t read ON THIN ICE, you have one final opportunity to download it for FREE from Amazon this weekend. I won’t be renewing my KDP Select contract, so this is the last time it will be offered as a FREE download for the foreseeable future. It will be available Saturday through Monday, January 26-28^th in honor of National Skating month and the US Figure Skating Championships taking place this week.

Bookmark this page and stop back this weekend to download your FREE Kindle copy from Amazon

Although Penny’s dream of Olympic Gold is derailed by life’s cruel twists of fate, she learns what all fierce competitors learn…follow your heart, and never give up.

2013, Here I Come

Hey, all, Suze here. This is my last post for 2012 and, frankly, I’d like to thank all those people who misinterpreted the Mayan Long Count Calendar.  I’m thrilled to still be here, and I’m glad all of you are too!

So, instead of talking about the Year in Review, I thought I’d talk today about the Year in Preview. I’m not talking about New Year’s Resolutions. Those tend to get shoved under the bed with the dust bunnies around January 10th or so. I’m talking about what I want my life to look like a year from now — here’s what I see. May I say, the view is pretty fine! Not in any particular order of importance:

I’m a published writer! Woohoo! I don’t know what form this will take: indie, digital-first press, or traditional, but you will be able to buy my book(s) before the end of 2013.

I’m in control of my health! I’m consistently making good food choices and exercising regularly. I may even have run that 5K. Catch me if you can!

I’ve finished two WIPs — great stories that have been sitting around and just need a few weeks out of my 52 to see the light of day.

I’ve finished (and sold!) at least one more new novel! 2012 was not exactly a banner year for me in the producing-new-words department. 2013 will see a huge jump in my lifetime word count, putting me closer to that magic 500,000 word mark.

I’ve made many cosmetic updates to my home environment. You know all those little things about your house that bug you and would be easy and inexpensive to fix, but always seem to get put aside? That tiny missing piece of molding? New paint needed in the dining room? Loose knob on one of the kitchen cabinets? That stuff is all taken care of in 2013. Sweet!

I’ve nurtured my relationships and friendships. Because without friends and family, life is pretty bleak.

What does 2013 look like for you?

 

Nanowrimo-ing Monkey #5 – It’s all over but the cryin’

Hidey-Ho Scribblers!  J Monkeys here.  Today is December 1st and Nanowrimo 2012 is officially over.  This year, I’ve really challenged myself.  While the standard goal is 50,000 words in 30 days, I’ve set myself a goal of 60,000 words in 30 days.  That’s 2,000 words a day, every day, including Thanksgiving!

Did I do it?  Well, I hit 50,060 on November 29th and called it a month.  I’m excited that I made it this far.  I’m a Nanowrimo 2012 Winner!  Yippeeeee.  I get such a sense of satisfaction out of that.  So even though I didn’t make it to the 60K mark, I’m thrilled with the work that I did accomplish.

What worked?  What helped me reach that goal?  I found that by week two, I was terribly behind in my word count for two reasons. 

1) Reality kept intruding on my work.  The kids were off from school for a few days, we had things happening in the household that required me to paint and create a new bedroom for one of my kiddies, things like that. 

2) My outline wasn’t juicy enough.  I got stuck after about 12,000 words and I didn’t know what came next.  When I realized that I wasn’t writing 2000 words in 3-4 hours, but rather 700 words in that same amount of time, I knew that the muse was absent.  I decided to start writing out of order.  I knew lots of scenes that need to happen in the book, so I just started writing scenes.  Whatever scene appealed to me at that moment.

What hindered me?  The more I wrote out of order, without taking the time to go back and fill in the blanks and put the book into order, I had trouble seeing the thread of the story.  That’s one reason why I stopped at 50K.  I need to go back and do a bit of editing work and I think that will actually make the writing process go more smoothly.  And they say, December is the month for the inner editor…

Today’s secret: I’m a Winner! 

Today’s question: How have you done on your personal challenges lately?

Nanowrimo-ing Monkey Blog #1

Hello there Blog-land!  J Monkeys here.  Do you Nanowrimo?  I’m Nanowrimo-ing this year – hard core!  Aren’t familiar with Nano – check out their site.  Or check out PJ’s blog from last week.  Nano is a great (FREE!) program.  I’ve been a Wrimo since 2008 and a winner at least twice.  Of course, since doing the challenge has resulted in words on the page, I’m really a winner every time, but you know, they have rules…

So, for Nano 2012, I’m going to get all of my Saturday blog posts for the month of November done in advance.  I’m trying to set myself up for success, that kind of thing.  But before I get to the meat of Nanowrimo-ing Monkey Blog #1, let me tell you all my goal now, because like PJ, I’m often motivated by the fear of public humiliation.  Between Nov 1 and November 30, I shall write 50,000 words in my current WIP.  In fact, I’m hoping to hit closer to 60k.  So that’s my goal.  By the time this post goes live, it will be the 3rd of November.    At a rate of 2000 words a day, I should have 4,000 words under my belt.  Here’s what I’ve got: 4,587.  Every Saturday for the month, I’ll let you know how far along I am and how things compare to the goal.

Today I’m going to tell you a little bit about my preparation for Nano.  Bear in mind that I’m a plotter, not a pantser.  Many people welcome Nov 1 with nothing more than a keyboard and a smile.  That doesn’t work for me.  I’d find myself on Nov 30 with about 10,000 words if I was lucky.

I’ve been working on a plot for 10 months or so and I’ve got my plot grid finished.  I know the overview of the story.  I know how it starts, what the turning points are and how I think it will end.  Of course all of that is subject to change as things go along, but at least I have a plan. 

I have a set of characters – protagonists and antagonists.  I know a lot about them and what makes them tick.  I know how the relationships between these folks are supposed to develop and the kind of personal growth I want for each of them.  I know what they look like and I have little cards about each of them pinned to the corkboard in my office.

I know the setting for the story – I know when and where it takes place.  I also know why it takes place there.

And finally, I understand the conflicts in the story.  This one has a main conflict of Man vs Man and a Man vs Nature sub-conflict. With a little bit of Man vs Self for good measure.  Nothing like covering all the bases, eh?

All that’s left is to write the story and believe it or not, for me, that’s the hard part.  All of this earlier work is really my favorite part of the writing process – creating the people and building the essence of their story in my mind is what I really like.  Pulling the sentences out of my brain, thinking as each character in turn, reacting the way she would – those are the hard parts.  And that’s why Nanowrimo is so great for me.  Lot’s of support and inspiration to get those sentences out.

Today’s secret: Nanowrimo – it’s not much of a secret, 300,000 people participated world-wide last year.  But of 7 billion, that’s less than 5 hundredths of a percent of the population.

Today’s question: What have you found that helps you get your writing done?

Happy November 1!

Hello all, Suze here. Happy November!

By now, I’m sure you know that today is the first day of National Novel Writing Month. (Really? There’s someone out there who doesn’t? Okay, then, click here for a link) There are going to be more Scribe posts about NaNo throughout the month, so stay tuned. But I thought I’d tell you about a few other reasons that November 1 is significant, courtesy of Wikipedia. Today’s Scorpio-licious Birthdays include:

• Peter Ostrum, 1957. Who the heck is Peter Ostrum, you ask? Well, he’s the actor who played Charlie in the original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie. Factoid: the grown-up Peter Ostrum is a large animal veterinarian (edited to add: please see my comment below regarding the importance of punctuation in a sentence such as this!)who owns a vet clinic in Lowville (pronounce that “low” to rhyme with cow, brow, etc.), New York, right near the AMF bowling pin factory and the Kraft cheese plant. Let’s all hoist a fizzy lifting drink!
• Louis the Stammerer, 846. Poor Louis, King of Aquitaine and Francia. Not only did he apparently have a stammer, but he did not rule for long, died at the age of 33, and gave his daughter the unfortunate name of Ermentrude. She had a daughter with the even more unfortunate name of Cunigunde. I guess it’s not always good to be the king.
• Marcia Wallace, 1942. You might not recognize the name, but Marcia played Carol the receptionist on the Bob Newhart Show and still voices Mrs. Krabappel on The Simpsons. Love you, Marcia! Ha!
• Jim Steinman, 1947. You also might not know this name, but you know the music. This songwriter will forever have a special place in my heart as the man who gave me such classics as Paradise by the Dashboard Light, Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad, and You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth. Jim and Meat Loaf, I thank you. Whether my son and husband thank you, I don’t know. Because they seem to run screaming from the room when I crank up your music as I’m dancing with the vacuum cleaner.

Have a lovely day, and if you’re participating in NaNo, quit reading and get back to work! Even if you’re not NaNo-ing, I’ll bet you’ve got other projects you’d like to finish before the end of the year. Why not use the communal energy NaNo generates (well, maybe that’s just the coffee and Red Bull!), pick a project, and take some steps to get it done? Can you share? 

Gearing up for NaNo

I’ve heard about NaNo-WriMo (National Novel Writing Month) for a few years and have never officially participated for one reason or another. But this year, I’m all in. NaNo-WriMo is an organized national event where writers find support and camaraderie in their commitment to write 50,000 words during the month of November. Conceivably, this could mean someone would be able to complete a first draft of a full length novel in thirty days. Just ask our very own Casey Wyatt, who completed a manuscript last year which then became published!

 When broken down into a daily word-count, it means writing about 1660 words per day—a very doable task for determined and self-disciplined writers. For me, that’s about a chapter a day or five to six pages. But one of the reasons I haven’t participated in the past is that…and don’t tell anyone…I don’t write every day. That’s right; sometimes days go by and I haven’t written a word. Life, work, and family might require my undivided attention, or maybe I’m processing my plot, dialogue, or how my next scene will move the story forward. Other days, I may write for six or eight hours, producing as many as twenty pages or two or three chapters. Up until recently, I wasn’t even paying very close attention to my word count. I gave myself a certain number of months to write my first draft and figured out how many pages a week I needed to write, but never felt the need to focus on the actual word count. 

That is until Susannah Hardy challenged the CTRWA members to start doing “sprints” on FaceBook. A sprint is when a bunch of people agree to spend a few hours at night writing their little hearts out to make a predetermined word-count goal. Ironically, the average writer is able to put out a thousand or fifteen hundred words in that period of time. Some more and some less, but the actual goal isn’t important. The sprints (and NaNo-WriMo) are successful because it gets everyone working toward their individual goal and is a way for this isolated work to feel much less lonely. It also holds us accountable to a group of people (nothing like peer pressure or the threat of public humiliation to get the muse musing). A little competition and some recognition for a job well done can’t hurt. Not to mention that you may just write the novel of your heart in a mere month—something that takes some writers a lifetime to accomplish. I figure I have nothing to lose by trying. Even if I don’t finish, I’ll be a heck of a lot further along than if I hadn’t tried.

This is where I’ll be in November

Here’s my challenge to myself. (I’ll share it with all of you since I’m highly motivated by accountability and the threat of public humiliation.) I’ve recently started my new work in progress (WIP), Book Two in The Chronicles of Lily Carmichael trilogy. Since the book is set to finish at about 70,000 words, I figure I’ll get a jump on NaNo-WriMo and try to have 20,000 words written by November 1st so I can plan for the other 50k and finish my first draft in a month. I’ve only managed a sixty-thousand words in six weeks pace one other time and that was when I wrote Savage Cinderella back in 2009. I may still not be able to write every day during November, but I’ll set my weekly goal for 10-12,000 words which is about 30-40 pages a week. That’s a pretty aggressive pace, but with the help and support of my writing family, I’m going to give it my best shot.

How about you? Are you going to participate in NaNo? Do you have a daily word-count goal? Do you write daily or have a weekly page count? I’m curious.

Awesomeness of Autocrit

PJ Sharon here on this fine Tuesday. I hope you are all well and writing up a storm. As I’m in the throes of edits and rewrites, I thought I would share an awesome new tool I found. I’ve been hearing about Autocrit for some time, but foolishly I chose to ignore the many recommendations from other writers about its virtues. Boy, have I been missing out!

Autocrit is an on-line service that provides assessment of your writing by way of software that generates a report outlining such helpful observations as overused words, sentence variation, clichés and redundancies, repeated words and phrases, pacing, dialogue, and more. Basically, all the things that a copy editor does, Autocrit does first, and quite thoroughly I might add.

If you go to their website http://www.autocrit.com, you can submit a four hundred word document (about a page or two) of your work in progress (WIP) for free, and in seconds, they will generate a report, not only telling you what overused words that appear in that section, but how many you should eliminate to meet acceptable standards. Your submission appears on the page with the offending overused words highlighted in red. You can even get a combination report showing overused words in red, repeated phrases in blue, and repeated words in green with underline.

You can try out the service for free, but if you want to use it on a regular basis, you can sign up for various levels of use. The $47/year package allows you to submit up to 1,000 words per day. This might be enough for an unpublished writer who is working at a slow and steady pace who wants access to editing help for small projects, flash fiction, or blogging. The Platinum package costs $77/year and allows you to submit up to 8,000 words/day. For serious writers who need the flexibility of having large sections edited and who want to work off-line, they offer the Professional package for $117/year. They allow for up to 100,000 words with unlimited submissions. I chose this package since I’m planning for multiple full length manuscripts and short stories over the next year. This will save me (and my editors) a lot of work on the back end. No more twenty pages of revisions to do before your work is publish ready. A worthy investment in my opinion.

The best part for me is that it showed me patterns I tend to follow and the common words and phrases that I repeat without being aware. Over time, I can see this being a great learning tool that will make me a much better writer. I hope to use it to make my job and my editor’s job that much easier, and to produce the cleanest copy possible.

Not that this word counting program could ever replace the watchful eye of a good editor, but there is no way human beings are going to be able to painstakingly weed through 70,000 words and tell me that I’ve used the words have and that twenty times each in chapter one and that I need to remove about thirteen of them. They might catch some of these infractions, but they won’t catch them all. Unless of course, they use Autocrit.

Have you discovered any on-line writing tools or software that has made your job easier? I’d love for you to share them with our readers.

First Draft-itis

PJ Sharon  here, although technically, I’m on the road again. I’m headed to Maine for a few days for some R&R and some dedicated writing time—sans internet distractions. Not that I should need to leave the state for that, but I’ve been having some difficulty focusing on the completion of my current WIP. I thought maybe a change of scenery would do me good. I have to say this is my toughest first draft ever! Partly because it’s the first series I’ve done and because I’ve never written a dystopian story before. But mostly, I’m having trouble allowing my first draft to suck.

I once referred to myself as a first draft addict. When I began  novel writing about seven years ago, I started with the grain of an idea. Then the characters came to me, I briefly wrote a few character sketches, and then I dove into the writing like a dolphin after a school of minnows. The words leapt onto the page and the story unfolded naturally. The writing was awful, but the sheer joy of telling the story carried me from beginning to end without any consideration for plotting, pithy dialogue, or lame word choices. But once I finished that book and was told by a kind but ruthless retired high school English teacher friend of mine that I “needed to learn the craft of writing,” I moved on to the next story in my head. Revising a 100,000 word manuscript seemed daunting, and I was all about telling my stories…not tearing them apart and dealing with the minutia of making them shine.

I jumped into the next story, wrote that first draft in a matter of months, and by that time had found RWA and some critique partners who told me again that I “had much to learn.” Issues like POV, showing vs. telling, balancing dialogue with narrative, and the dreaded “navel gazing” that I’m still quite fond of, were all problems to be tackled if I wanted to revise and make that story work. It was a story called THE AMULET, and I would love to go back and  resurrect it, which I’m sure would require almost a complete re-write. You see, I had no idea how to revise those early manuscripts, so instead, I just moved on to the next crazy set of characters that wouldn’t shut up in my head. It was a learning process that I needed to endure before I finally had enough “craft” skill under my belt to know how to construct a story. Over time, working with critique partners, taking workshops and working with my English teacher friend, the revision process became clearer.

Now, after revising and publishing three young adult novels, I’ve gotten pretty good at the revision and editing process. The bad news is that now it’s tough to turn that part of my brain off. It’s difficult to simply write my story without tearing it apart as I go. My process these days is that I try to complete a chapter each time I sit down to write. I don’t write every day, either because of time constraints or the simple fact that I need time to research or work out and process my story. But when I do sit down and jump back into it, I first have to re-read my previous chapter and do some revisions before I can move on. That one step back and two steps forward has slowed my process down considerably. I’m hoping it saves me on the other end and that revisions will be less daunting, but I’m finding it challenging to ignore my internal editor who reminds me about deadlines, clichés, missed opportunities to “show”, and extraneous words cluttering the page. It kind of takes the fun out of telling the story.

I have to say, it was helpful to hear from both Kristan Higgins and Sherry Thomas that it is normal for a first draft to suck and that you just have to allow yourself that as you write. With each story, I learn something new about myself and this crazy process of being a writer. I have to wonder if it ever gets easier, or if anything worthy of being called art can be manifest without the birthing pains that come with the process of creation.

How do you handle your internal editor? Is it possible to stuff her in a closet until the end of the first draft? If so, I’d love some tips on how to wrestle her into submission. (I know it’s a “her’ because a man couldn’t possibly be that big of a nag…no offense ladies.)

Today’s unlocked secret:

Turn off your internal editor and give yourself permission to let your first draft suck!