struggling -

14Nov 2012 by diannagunn

Remember: You Are Not Alone

Inspirational, Nanowrimo, Novels, Writing, Writing: The Process

If you are struggling this week, remember that you are not alone. There are hundreds, probably even thousands, of writers who are several thousand words behind in their Nanovels. Everyone struggles at some point during the month. Even in my biggest year, when I wrote 300K, I still struggled. I didn't write 10K every day. I couldn't write every day. There were several days during the month when I felt uninspired and my head hurt too much to figure out where to take my novel next. The reason I got my extreme word count was because on the days when I did write, I wrote 20K or more. This year I've been struggling a lot to stay on top of my Nanowrimo. I spent the last week of October and…

19Sep 2011 by diannagunn

It’s Tough to be a Writer

Journalling, Prompts, Short Fiction, Workshops, Writing

Writing isn't easy. Or perhaps I should say that writing well isn't easy, even for those of us who have an instinctive grasp of grammar and spelling. Fiction is particularly difficult, because you're creating new people and giving them new experiences. A good story is something like a tapestry--made up of many different elements and woven for hours upon hours upon hours. In order to write an amazing book, you need to have a strong setting, strong characters, and a good, non-stereotypical plot. And you're going to have to rewrite, because you'll probably realize that your characters aren't as tough as you thought they were, and your plot's got holes in it bigger than your windows. And after that, you're going to have to rewrite again, because on the first…