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Day 31 – The End

By Alice ⋅ May 31, 2008 ⋅ 22 comments

Dear Writers,
We’ve made it!
It’s day 31 of our challenge. Our last day. Just enough time to squeeze in a few more pages. Or if you work hard, a few thousand words. It’s like the last 400 meters of the race. The sprinters are lining up behind their team, ready to swing out and race for [...]

Day 28 – The Home Stretch

By Alice ⋅ May 28, 2008 ⋅ 10 comments

It doesn’t look like I will finish!
Now what?
What if I don’t win the challenge? What if I don’t make it to 25K words in a month?
Don’t worry this challenge was designed to get you going. Yes it would be nice to finish a novella in a month but just in case you didn’t finish the [...]

Day 26 – Check in!

By Alice ⋅ May 26, 2008 ⋅ 19 comments

Okay folks. It’s late. We’ve been at this for 26 days. I’m sure you’re tired. Your fingers might hurt.
But let’s push hard. Let’s pick up the pace. Push hard. Write, write, write. Before you go off to write, tell us where you’re at. Cheer on your fellow challengers. Check out a few blogs. And then [...]

Dialog Tags by Isabel Sharpe

By Alice ⋅ May 26, 2008 ⋅ 6 comments

This isn’t an inspirational blog so much as what I’d call a “cautionary” article on one of my biggest pet peeves: Unnecessary dialog tags. I know many, many published authors love dialog tags I would consider unnecessary, so I’m not going to tell you it’s wrong to use them, but they drive me insane.
“Does [...]

Get your house in order

By Alice ⋅ May 23, 2008 ⋅ 6 comments

by Isabel Sharpe
Monday May 12th was the day I’d assigned myself to start my next project. Either I was going to brainstorm a new proposal or begin writing a novella that isn’t due until August. That morning I woke up, cranky and scattered. The house was a mess, I was recently returned [...]

Day 22

By Alice ⋅ May 22, 2008 ⋅ 9 comments

Okay…a little over a week to go, where are you at? Me…I’m way behind. So far behind I barely see the light at the end of the tunnel. But I am still trucking along. I write at lunch. I think about the story constantly, write notes on plot twist and turns. I write at night [...]

Day 19

By Alice ⋅ May 19, 2008 ⋅ 63 comments

You’re all a little over halfway through the challenge and don’t you feel great about it? Give yourselves a hand! Bring out the chocolate and champagne. And let’s have some sexy guys do the serving, shall we?But the real party will be at the end of the month.
By now, you should have a good handle [...]

Day 18

By Alice ⋅ May 18, 2008 ⋅ 5 comments

Here are a few nuggets to get you through the day.
I’m not a very good writer, but I’m an excellent rewriter. ~James Michener
Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart. ~William Wordsworth
Julie Leto has another interesting article about writing the book of your Voice rather than the book of your Heart. Read [...]

Day 17 – Words of Wisdom

By Alice ⋅ May 17, 2008 ⋅ 7 comments

I’ve got a few words of wisdom for you from the talented Julie Leto. In her article Layering and Texturing (which is great btw and you can read it here.) she mentions a few things she says to post over your monitor. And I totally agree.
1) DON’T GET IT RIGHT, GET IT WRITTEN.
2) YOU CANNOT [...]

IN DEFENSE OF SLOWNESS

By gailbarrett ⋅ May 16, 2008 ⋅ 32 comments

Okay. Everyone is busy writing away, right? You’re cranking out the pages, tallying up your word counts, chortling at how productive you are.Or maybe not. Maybe some of you are lurking in the background, afraid to post because you haven’t written that much. You started with the rest of us, but [...]

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