07Dec 2012 by Dianna Gunn

Define Your Success

Goal setting, Inspirational, Workshops, Writing, Writing
Success means different things to different people. The media often portrays success as a house, a long-term partner, kids and money. Your family probably has their own definition of success, based on both the media's definition success and their own feelings. Your friends probably each have their own definition of success too. Even the strange old hermit down the street has her own definition of success. Though success is only one word, it has as many definitions as there are people. What is true for everyone, though, is that you will never be truly happy if you don't strive to reach your own definition of success. Too many people go chasing after their parents' ideas of success, and end up with diplomas and careers they care nothing for. They gain…
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31Oct 2012 by diannagunn

Happy Halloween!

Inspirational, Nanowrimo, Novels, Writing, Writing: The Process
Tonight, millions of kids all over the world will be dressing up in bizarre costumes and knocking on door after door to fill their pillow cases with candy. Many children on the eastern coast of the US will be staying in due to hurricane Sandy, whose winds have brought days of rain as far north as Toronto. Many adults will be dressing up and going to Halloween dinner parties. I'm sure some of you will be taking the kids out or going to a dinner party. I, on the other hand, with probably a few thousand other writers, will be staying in frantically trying to finish the six pages of editing I have left in MG so I can start Nanowrimo at midnight without too many worries. Of course, I…
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24Oct 2012 by diannagunn
One Cannot Be Ready for Everything by Allison Cosgrove

One Cannot Be Ready for Everything by Allison Cosgrove

Guest Post, Nanowrimo, Novels, Workshops, Writing, Writing, Writing: The Process
Today's author is Allison Cosgrove, several time Nanowrimo winner, former word war captain, mother of three, hard worker and recently published author. I've already interviewed her here and am currently reading her mystery novel, Sacrifice of Innocence, which I'll be reviewing sometime in the upcoming months. Today she's decided to do us all the honour of sharing her realization that none of us are ever truly ready for Nanowrimo. * * * * One thing I have come to realize, as a long standing WriMo Veteran, is that in preparing for the wonderful thing that is NaNoWriMo is that we are never truly ready for it. I mean there are things we can prepare. We can plot and outline and make notes for just about everything, pre-cook and freeze meals,…
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13Feb 2012 by diannagunn

Preparing to Edit a Novel

Editing: The Hard Part, Novels
It's that time of year again. All the mistletoe has rotted and half of everyone's New Year resolutions have already been thrown out the window. That first draft of your Nano--or whatever other project you've been ignoring for the last several months--has been sitting in its corner quietly collecting dust for long enough. It's time to pull that tome out and edit. It will be painful, it might be bloody--though I suspect you'll go through more ink than actual blood--but it's necessary. Trust me, your novel will look better without all those tangents and ten page character descriptions. They are extra limbs just getting in the way--I mean, spiders have eight legs but if a human had eight arms that would just be awkward, right? Think of limbs as sub-plots…
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