The Writing Life

RSS Feed Homepage

Articles: 1, 2, 3, 4

Writing Goals
2006-06-01 17:40:00
Last time I asked about whether you set goals when you create your characters. Today, I want to know if you set goals for yourself. I’m referring specifically to writing, but am also curious if you set goals for writing as part of an overall strategy to reach life objectives. Personally, I write out goals for myself at the beginning of each year. I review my previous year’s goals and see how well (or poorly) I did in achieving them. My strategy usually consists of an evolving set of goals. For example, if I want to write more, I may start with a goal of 5 hours per week and work my way up during the year. I call my strategy my ‘2006 Plan of Action.’ It includes a mission statement, writing goals, work, family, and home goals, spiritual and ethical goals, social and cultural, physical and health, mental and educational, and outreach goals. Sounds like a lot, but I usually feel successful if I improve even just a little in each area. I got the idea from Vicki Hinze, an inspira...
More About: Writing , Goa , Goals , Goal , Portage

Writing scenes and creating characters - techniques
2006-05-30 05:26:00
Hope everyone had a great weekend. I'm off to Quebec City for a few days on a business trip. Then, I'm off for 1 1/2 weeks on holidays! The plan: to get tons of writing done.My question to you writers is, do you use the Goal-Motivation-Conflict technique in your writing? Do you apply GMC to both internal and external goals?Joan Swan over at Romance Worth Killing For wrote an interesting post about Robert Gregory Brown's attitude, emotion, goal and action technique. Swan says:In relation to character development though, RBG brought it all back together for me with one simple concept: imagination + self.He says every character he writes is him--hero, heroine, secondary, tertiary, one-liners. They're all him...RBG suggests you ask yourself, if this were me, how would I handle the situation?My next question is, do you get your characters from within yourself? Or, do you create characters externally? Or, if none of the above, how do you make your characters seem real?UPDATE: Therese ...
More About: Writing , Tech , Technique , Creating , Characters

Friday's Excuse Not To Write
2006-05-26 15:08:00
Reprinted with permission from 101 Excuse s Not to Write .
More About: Friday , Frida

Friday's Excuse Not To Write
2006-05-19 15:19:00
Reprinted with permission from 101 Excuse s Not to Write .
More About: Friday , Frida

Visualization
2006-05-03 14:21:00
Paperback Writer says, “Until I can run the entire story through my head comfortably, without blips, concerns, blank spots or hitches, I don't attempt to get into research, make up a notebook, write a formal outline or proposal, etc. That full-story visualization is really important to me and my process; it may not be as important to other writers..."Visual ization is something I’m just discovering in my writing and, perhaps, one of the reasons why sitting down and just typing away is so hard for me at times.Often when I’m doing other things, I mull over my story. When I get some ideas of what’s going to happen and how it’s going to happen, that’s when I can sit down and just pound out the words. I need to be able to see/visualize the scene before I can actually write it.I do outline, but my outline is a one-line description of the scene (like boy meets girl) along with the goals and motivations for that scene. I don’t outline how that scene unfolds. This, I now know, ...
More About: Visualization