Month: March 2024

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Defeat Writer’s Block

For Writers

The monster we call Writer’s Block has 3 manifestations, and we reveal them on The Write Focus podcast.

created by Emily R. Dunn
Audiobook and Ebook publishing in the Summer as part of the Summer Writing Challenge.

It’s a Series on this slimy bugbear > that really doesn’t exist.

Episodes started in February.

Introduction to the Series https://eden5695.podbean.com/e/506-defeat-writers-block-introduction/

Overcoming Type 1 https://eden5695.podbean.com/e/507-defeat-writers-block-overcoming-type-1/

Overcoming Type 2 https://eden5695.podbean.com/e/508-defeat-writers-block-type-2/

Overcoming Type 3 https://eden5695.podbean.com/e/509-defeat-writers-block-overcoming-type-3/?token=be9e8379ee2ebd4690d8f7f70ee115a5

Episodes continue with Pro Writers’ Advice on Defeating Writer’s Block.

5 + 5 Writers give snippets of advice which we examine. Part A and Part B. Here’s the Link to Part A

Two episodes for the blockbuster master writer Erle Stanley Gardner on techniques to overcome the unmentioned unmentionable. Here’s the Link to the 1st for Gardner.

Judy Delton’s advice on the block from her 29 Most Common Writing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them. Available by April 20 :: link to first of 2 episodes.

Mary Stewart on the Writing Flow, revealed through her fictional characters in The Stormy Petrel: link available after April 20.

Kate Wilhelm’s writing memoir Storyteller offers several things to say on Writer’s Block: link available after April 30.

Sophy Burnham offers her musings on the causes emotional and intellectual for Writer’s Block. Available after May 5.

The grand finale to the series is the Grande Dame of American Romantic Mystery and Suspense, Phyllis A. Whitney, available after May 15.

Enjoy these as they become available (here’s a link to the playlist on YouTube)

OR

Purchase the ebook, paperback, or audiobook when it becomes available this Summer.

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Discovering Your Novel

What kind of writer are you?  Planner or Plotter?  Pantster?  Puzzler?  Muse Muffin?

Whether you use the mosaic method or a chronological one, whether you outline every scene or let the words flow, the method does not matter.  What matters is the end goal.

So, what’s the end goal with your writing?  Just to write?  To publish?  Fame and fortune?

Plenty of frittery flutter-bys write and write and go nowhere.  As for fame and fortune, those can’t be guaranteed.

However, when your goal is publication, Discovering Your Novel is the guidebook to help you overcome the Sisyphean task of first word to publication.

With the goal of completing a novel in 52 weeks, this guidebook can be self-paced or tracked week by week for persistent success.

  • If you have a half-completed manuscript that you’re lost in, use the Foundations and Visioning sections to work your way out of the labyrinth.
  • If the story’s a mucky mire more like quicksand than a novel you can build on, use the Analysis section to clear away the mud and weeds.
  • Like a long ball of string, the multiple charts will help you keep track of where you’ve been and where you will head next.  Printable charts are available for free at the website address provided in the guidebook
  • When you complete the manuscript, what do you do next?  The sections on Harvesting and Finishing answer these questions as they guide you to creating a professional career as a writer.

Launch your writing journey at your current location on the publishing road—incipient idea or character sketches or story plan or struggling manuscript or completed novel looking into publication.

Track your progress with daily word counts recorded on the charts.

Learn the devices and definitions that pro writers have swirling in their heads.

Maintain the discipline and preparation that keeps pro writers at work, no matter the interruptions.

Writer M.A. Lee meandered along the road of unfinished manuscripts and completed novels with nowhere to publish for many years before she decided to drive to her own destiny.  If you’re tired of gatekeepers and pay-to-play schemes, if you’re weary of elitist traditional publishers and you’re eager to jump on the self-publishing juggernaut, then Discovering Your Novel will give the guidance you need.