The Archive
From The Real+Good Writer blog, 2016-2018
Because of policies in government, children are being separated from families at the border as they seek a new life in America. Today, June 30, is the official day of action for Families Belong Together, a movement to end family separation and detention and reunite loved ones. Talking about politics is hard. Thinking about the broken lives, the cries of these children, the unknown outcomes of these families is even harder. However, as a writer, it's important to stand up for what I believe in and use the power words (the skill I know) to use my voice for good. This post contains resources for action, education, and writing to empower you to use your own voice for good on the issue of immigration.
Our job as writers is not to churn out novel after novel or short story after short story, but to tell each story as it wants to be told, whether it's the form we think we know or something new entirely. You should always be seeking to tell your stories in the way they deserve to be told, strengthening your writing skills, and exploring new worlds and forms you haven't considered before. This is how you become the writer you want to be. Denying your muse the opportunity to play with other genres is just going to make inspiration disappear. And if you force your story to be something it's not, it's not going to turn out well. Let’s dive into 3 reasons why you should be playing with a variety of genres (and some helpful links for how to do it!).
For a long time I've been in the dark of what actually writing a whole novel looks like. I believed it was straightforward: writing chapter one, then chapter two, all the way to "the end". But in reality, at least for me, the process doesn't really look like that. I'm sharing my process–the good, the bad, the epically messy–to document the novel-writing reality that's true to me. Hopefully, if you're writing a novel and struggling with questions of "Am I doing it right?", sharing my process will give you the confidence and calm that no matter how messy and crazy your draft is, you can get through it. So, here's what this novel has been through so far and what's yet to come! This is Novel Notes Update #1!
2017 is nearly finished. This has been a year of trials and errors, heartbreak and growth, change and curiosity. It has been full of good times and shitty ones. 2017 hasn't been the perfect year in the history of years–writing-wise, life-wise, or politically. But it was a year, and it deserves some attention and reflection so we can enter 2018 consciously, intentionally, and powerfully. Here's what's happened in my literary world this year, what lessons I learned, and how you can apply these to your own writing life.
To live your best writing life, you need to set goals to accomplish your big dreams and tackle them one step at a time. You have to be intentional with your approach, making the time and space for life and the time and space for writing. You have to take consistent baby-steps to actually accomplish your writing goals, experiment with your writing process to perfect your best writing routine, show writing the love and attention it deserves to thrive, and balance writing with your life, so you can be both the human and the writer you hope to be. And I created an AWESOME tool to help you do it. Say hello to The WriteLife Planner – your 3-month guide to conquering one major writing project, strengthening your writing practice, and loving your writing life while you do it.
You don't have to be writing 24/7 to be involved in your writing life, and you shouldn't try to. As writers, we engage in other literary activities for our writing to become the best writers we can be. We work to balance out our writing, to refuel our creative wells, to know our stories intimately, and to share our stories with the world. We've got to infuse these kind of activities into your writer's practice so you can become the holistic, well-rounded, wholehearted writer you hope to be. I've found that there are six major categories of things that should always be on your writer's to-do list to balance out your writing practice: Reading, Experimentation, Wholehearted Writing Sessions, Intimate WIP Discovery, Engagement with the Literary Community, and Writerpreneurship Building. Let's talk about how you can infuse them into your writing life, put them on your writer's to-do list, and work to become the best writer you can be. (Plus, I've got 94 activities to accomplish these things and show your writing life some love!).
Your writing routine is composed of four ingredients: your when, your where, your how, and your how much. You may already have an idea of how these ingredients are functioning (or not functioning) in your writing life, but we don't want to just pick some aimlessly and assume its perfect for us, because there isn't a one-size-fits-all approach to your writing life. You've got to figure out the best routine for you, which is different from me and every other writer. Plus, I've got 86 ways you can experiment with your writing life to discover your own best writing routine.
In theory, we would get more writing done if we had a perfect world where the stars aligned and everything worked in our writing's favor. But we could sit around waiting for this "right" reality for the rest of our lives. The truth is, you're a writer and a human. You do have a day-job and responsibilities and a life. But you can't let the fact that you're human get in the way of the fact that you're a writer. Instead of thinking about your writing and life as an "us" versus "them" war, we have to help them work together. Here are my 5 tips on how to balance writing with the rest of your life.
If you want to learn to write fiction, there are a LOT of things you need to know about. But trying to learn them all while writing a novel can be time-consuming and frustrating. Learn to write fiction the quick and easy way by focusing on the short story. The short form is the standard vehicle for teaching fiction in schools around the world, but it's time to learn the short story form on your time from the comfort of your own home. In the 30-day short story challenge, we'll read stories and we'll write stories. I've got your plan to get started (and a bunch of stories you should read right now)!
GUEST POST BY JACQUELYN EUBANKS | When you finish drafting your story, you may ask: “Should I get an editor to look over my story? Or should I just edit it myself?” The answer is both. Jacquelyn takes you through 8 necessary steps of self-edits and hiring an external editor to get you to the revised story you desire.
If you want to grow as a writer, you have to put in some work. You have to learn about craft, you have to lay the proper mental foundation, you have to get the writing done consistently, again and again. There are TONS of avenues to help you grow as a writer, and many of them are free. But when you're ready to take your writing to the next level, you're going to have to invest. And this is where a LOT of writers get unnecessarily held back. One of the biggest myths I see from writers all the time goes something like this: "I need to make money from writing before I invest money into writing," or "The writing has to prove its worth before I spend any money on it." And this is SUCH a big myth. So let's debunk the myth and look at some quality avenues of where to invest your writing. You'll stop stunting your growth as a writer, and be on your way to becoming the writer you've always wanted to be in no time. Your writing life will thank you for it.
When you're ready to take writing seriously, you create Your Writer's Business Plan: a detailed action-plan to set your goals, earnings, investments, intentions, and mission in one organized place! In 6 important sections, we're going to figure out what your Writer's Business Plan looks like. We're going to dive into your mission, vision, and goals, your brand personality, style, and how you portray yourself, your products (aka the stories) and the production process to get them done, the earnings and investments you'll make for your writing, and your ongoing education and personal growth strategies to be an even better writer than before. Let's take writing seriously, and create your Writer's Business Plan! +I made you a workbook to get started!
You want to be a writer. You want to be a real, and good writer. And so you work your butt off trying to absorb EVERYTHING you can about storytelling in order to be the best writer you can be. But there's one area of research missing in this curriculum: YOURSELF. You can be SO well-versed in storytelling techniques and practices, and that is great and necessary. But it means NOTHING if you don't apply it in a way that makes sense for you. You need to know your Real+Good Writer's DNA. And fortunately, I've got a FREE 12-Day course to help you discover yours.
I decided to realign my energy on my writing with a DIY at-home writing retreat. Lucky for me, I had a four-day weekend from my day-job, and I packed those days with literary happiness. I read, I wrote, I lived the writing life I wanted. And I emerged energized, motivated, and passionate. Take a peek at what my DIY writing retreat looked like, what I learned, and how you can infuse these lessons into your life too.
You love writing, but how often do you show it? Often, we just get so busy, and then you and your writing life hit a rough patch. But you can turn that around and strengthen your love simply by choosing to invest the time. You're the only one that can strengthen your relationship with writing. It starts by taking small, consistent actions each day. Here's three ways you can get started right now, today. These aren't new ideas you've never heard before. But they are tested and true ideas that work. It's up to you to choose to love writing. Will you do it?
Your voice is necessary and important, and it deserves to be heard. But what if you don't know your voice? What if you don't know how you should say what you're trying to say? What if you're not sure if you even have a voice at all? I'm with you, my friend. Learn how to discover your unique writing voice in 5 simple steps so you can write the stories that sound like you.
Your voice matters. Your voice mattered yesterday. Your voice matters today. And your voice matters tomorrow. Your voice is important. It deserves to be heard. Your stories deserve to be told. You and this whole writing thing are necessary. Especially in a world full of controversial political conversations. Especially in a divided country. Especially when others are spouting out hate. We're getting a little political, but it's necessary in order for you to share your unique and beautiful truths with your unique and beautiful voice.
A well-read writer is a well-fed writer. We all know that by this point. If you want to write Real+Good Writing, you've got to read Real+Good Books. But how do you choose what to read next? How do you make a plan for your reading so that your writing can flourish? And how the heck do you read more? Let's talk about create your BEST reading life, so you can continue your best writing life.
Its’s time to live your BEST writing life! Whether you’re celebrating the New Year or knee-deep into June, you can ALWAYS take the time to set some strong intentions for the amazing writing life you deserve. I am determined to help you make this your best writing year yet and I've got 17 tips to help you plan your writing year, transform your writing dreams into your reality, and become the writer you were always meant to be. Are you ready?!
Setting does NOT simply equate to drawing maps and designing house floor-plans and planting trees all around your world. It isn't just about the weather or the town where the story takes place. It isn't just world-building from scratch. Setting certainly can be these things, but it also goes a lot deeper than that. Setting grounds you in place and time, but it also sets the mood and tone, provides a lens to understand the world through, and works in conversation with your other elements (characters, plot, and theme). Setting does A LOT more work (even if it is subtle, background work) than we often give it credit for. So, how do you get your setting to do its work – productive, necessary, hard work – without going overboard? We're going to look at the 3 mistakes writers often make when designing their setting or world-building and how to fix it.
I used to be a Procrastiwriter; you know, a writer who wants to write, but has a lot of trouble actually getting words onto the page. I've had some real low writing slumps throughout my life. But then I got sick of them. I wanted to become a happy AND productive writer, and so I set out on a quest to discover just how to do it. And I emerged successful. Now, I've distilled my super secret, life-transforming process into a simple formula so you can become a happy + productive writer too.
Do you fear failure? Do you hate being rejected? Has rejection derailed your writing life before? In sixth grade, it paralyzed my writing life so bad that I quit writing for nearly four years. But rejection is a normal part of the writing process, and it's never going away. In fact, it's probably going to happen to you a lot (do you know really how hard it is to get published? I've got stats that will scare you). Learn all about my traumatizing experience with rejection, how I solved it, and what you can do when (not if) it happens to you!
Do you have trouble making real progress with your writing life? Do you have big writing dreams, but struggle to make them come true? Do you have good intentions to write, but suck at putting them into practice? Do you finally get all the stars aligned, sit down to write, and stare at the blank page uninspired? You need a healthy dose of discipline. The only way to actually get the writing done is by doing the writing; but making it a habitual practice will make it easier to write every time, you'll write more often, and you'll train your muse to show up with you. Learn the 3 steps to discipline your writing life and command the muse to show up on your time.
If you're ready to take writing seriously, you have to know what you're doing; and, more importantly, you have to know why you're doing it. Your why will be there to give you energy to start, it will comfort you and keep you going when you slog through the middle, and it will pull you up and dust you off when you crash. Your why is basically your BFF as a writer. Have you ever stopped to consider why you write? There's a history of writer's exploring their reasons and motifs. Learn all about it and discover your own why in this post! (+ There's a FREE pretty printable for you!)
The way I go from BIG IDEA to finished story is kind of weird. I always thought it would be this linear, very defined approach, but I don't function like that. My draft phases follow building the anatomy of a story through specific, key craft elements. My phases aren't defined by "The End" or "Draft 4", but by mindset and attention to certain story pieces. If you're curious what a "skeleton draft" is (or what a "freckle draft" is), click through to read how I write, revise, and edit my stories to completion in five distinct phases.
The most productive time of my writing life was spent on a rural island in Greece called Thassos. It was literary magic. But when I returned home, my writing suffered. I needed to find a way to recreate the amazing writing productivity in my own backyard. I thought I needed the island, but I really needed a structured freedom to write, a life inspiring enough to write about, time to let my brain be free, good books to study, and a community to guide and inspire me. These are the necessary ingredients to a productive writing life. And these are what YOU need if you want to make a productive writing life for yourself.
You may use a revising checklist or an editing checklist to bring your story to fruition, but sometimes that's just not enough. Perhaps this particular story DOESN'T call for setting overload, or this particular story DOES call for characterization development. Every story is unique in its needs. The following five techniques will get you working with your story in the way revision was intended to be: a literal re-vision-ing of what your story is intended to be. They will get you thinking about your story in different ways. They'll ask you to pay attention to the specific, unique elements that THIS particular story needs. They'll ask you to remember the heart of the story, and bring that to the surface in a meaningful way. This isn't focusing on word choice, but intention. Ready to get revising?
Perhaps you're ready to attack Camp NaNoWriMo next month or classic NaNoWriMo in November. Perhaps you're just embarking on your own personal writing quest on your own schedule. The truth is, you want to write a novel, and that's awesome! You're about to do an amazing thing. It's going to be difficult. It's going to be a challenge. But it's going to be well worth it. Before you get started with your novel, you have to be prepared. There's a lot of time, effort, and energy that go into writing a novel, so you want to make sure you're well-equipped for whatever's going to happen. This is the ultimate packing list of everything you'll need to write your novel.
Sometimes your writing life is not productive. Sometimes you get yourself into a funky creative rut, a state of "un", where things are just not going your way. It's easy to get frustrated and depressed when this happens, and it sucks. But you're not alone. These low-points are normal in life, and they're only temporary. Learn how to deal with your creative rut appropriately and get out of it so you can get back to accomplishing your wildest writing dreams.
You've probably seen a million bajillion character questionnaires. Most of the time they ask you about basic physical facts: birthdays, height, favorite colors. But these aren't the details that create an interesting, authentic, believable character that will stick with readers. These details won't allow your readers to be intimate with your characters. Learn the REAL questions you should be asking your characters. Get to the heart, the core, the DNA of their self in order to bring them to life. By going through your character's psyche, influences, and behavior, we'll discover who your character really is. It’s time to get character planning, my friend!
Every month I like to do a reflection on my achievements and a little bit of planning my goals and dreams for the coming weeks. June is the half-way mark of the year, and it's the perfect time to evaluate where you're at and where you're going. It's also important to set goals that you actually can and want to accomplish. Learn how to set the right kind of goals so you'll actually get shit done and transform your writing dreams into your reality. Plus, there's a FREE 10-page workbook to get you started on your own goal setting.
Did you know that men get published more than women? They also win more awards and get more reviews. Did you know that women's literature gets categorized differently than men's? This is a problem. Now, I'm not going on a feminist rant, don't worry. But there are some facts you should know, and you should know how to deal with being a "female writer" in today's publishing world.
There's an ongoing war between literary fiction and genre. They're placed at odds with each other, a black or white fight to who's better. But in fact, there's a BIG gray area. In order to write a Real+Good Story, you need to know the actual differences between the two, how they're made up of the same stuff with different levels of emphasis, and how you can cater to that in your novel so your reader is satisfied. Plus, I made you a workbook that asks you the right questions about your novel so you can fuse genre conventions and literary conventions to write the best story possible.
George Saunders is a freaking genius writer, which is why he's one of my FAVORITE masters. What he does especially well is creating realistic, believable, authentic voices for his characters. Let's look at some Saunders stories in action to see what he's doing well, and then explore 5 techniques that you can get started with TODAY to make your characters speak authentically too.
With so many resources out there telling you how to write your novel and how to write at all, it's easy to feel like you HAVE to do things a certain way. But the only person who knows what's best for you is you. So what SHOULD you do? Step #1: Figure out what you know about how you approach big things. I tried considering what I do in two separate case-studies of "big things" I've tackled in the past, and it illuminated a process that I didn't know I had. Here's what I learned, how you can figure out your own process, and apply it to your current work-in-progress.
You started your novel with Motivation! Excitement! Power! And now you're feeling... anything besides that. You believed in this project at one point, and you don't want to quit on it now, but you've got to find a way to reignite your passion. Here's 5 quick tips that will get you refocused on your novel, recommitted to it, and ready to write, so you can make your writing dreams a reality.
Let's assume for now that you've already got that hard stuff figured out. This isn't about planning the intricacies of your novel. This isn't a craft lecture. Rather, this is figuring out how to get your mind in the right place so that when it comes down to doing it, YOU ACTUALLY DO IT. This is about mental preparation to set your goals and achieve them in the time period you allowed. Learn how to get your mind ready so that when you're ready to write, you write.
Literary fiction writers tend to avoid plot. We’re trained to be plot snobs, focused only on character development and description and point-of-view amongst other things. But your story can’t be plotless. Plot is tension, plot is drama, plot IS story. So we must learn to fuse plot and character seamlessly. Learn how in 4 steps to get started with your story.
When your story is falling flat and you're wondering if you should abandon it, DON'T! Learn how to use The Frankenstein Technique (juxtaposition, causality, and subtext) to bring deeper themes to your story and reinvigorate it with new life.
Was your story inspired by real events, real people, real life? This can often make your story seem authentic, but how much "you" is too much "you" in your story? Where do you draw the line? Fiction and truth are not mutually exclusive. Learn how they can work together to make your story truly shine.
There are a MILLION different rules of writing you could follow. But there's really only two you need to absolutely succeed. Find out what they are and follow them. Ideally, now.
We write “about” the world. We write to document the human experience: the beauty, the chaos, the pain, the sentiment. We want to write something real. But how do we evoke it without falling into cliche? Poet Joy Katz shows us how to defeat that pesky cloud of "aboutness" when it comes to big themes once and for all. Here’s how she got me to think about common, but big themes in a whole new way.
Do you ever feel like you're not good enough? Like you're not a real writer? It's a paralyzing fear caused by your evil internal editor, and it can make you stop writing. Learn what the imposter syndrome is and how to get rid of it, so you can get back to working on your Real+Good Writing.
If you want to get to Real+Good Writing, you first have to know who you are, what you're writing, and why you're writing it. Learn how thinking about the Writer's DNA opened doors for my writing to be what I really wanted it to be. Plus, discover your own Writer's DNA with a FREE 12-Day course!
I'm sure you've Googled "story prompts" or have a writing prompt book on your desk. But have you ever considered using Facebook, Twitter, or even your email for story ideas? Learn how to get an endless supply of prompts that speak to you.
You've got the framework of your story: the characters, the plot, the structure. But without details, it's going to be the same story that everybody else wrote. Learn how to make your story your own by using specific details.
Are you making excuses to put off your writing? Are you saying things like, "I'm too tired / too busy / too hungover / don't know what to write?" Well, quit it. Excuses like that are not doing anybody any good. Beat those negative thoughts and beat writer's block once and for all.
Fall brings cozy sweaters and yummy coffee, the perfect combination to cuddle up with words. It also brings NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, where writers from all around the world compete with themselves to write 50,000 new words on their novel in 30 short days. It's a writing marathon that requires commitment, energy, and dedication to your story. To successfully prepare for NaNoWriMo, the writing community has also created Preptober. A portmanteau of prepare and October, this month-long retreat gives you the time to plan your story, create your characters, write an outline, and manage your obligations outside of writing so you can focus and succeed during your writing marathon. Learn all about Preptober and get the resources you need to successfully plan and prep your novel!