Skip to content

Posts by Carly Sandifer

Nov 12

3 Comments

25 tools to keep you in your writing groove

Plenty of things can distract us from our writing mission. Here’s a list of 25 writers’ resources, that should make your writing life a little easier and more productive.

Some of these will be especially helpful if you’re participating in NaNoWriMo.

Here are a few from the list:

SimplyNoise. If a noisy environment threatens to knock you out of your writing groove, you’ll love SimplyNoise, a free white noise generator. A slider button at the top of the web page offers a selection of white, pink, and brown noise. You can also make a donation and download others, including the sounds of ocean waves or a rainstorm. After five minutes of listening to the oscillating sounds of white noise, I was in a deep writing trance. Addictive. Read more

Nov 8

4 Comments

NaNoWriMo or not, boost your word count

In our month-long celebration of NaNoWriMo, we’re offering tips, tools, and inspiration to help you write your heart out. NaNoWriMo or not, these resources and ideas will make you more prolific and creative well beyond November.

I was intrigued to find this post by author Rachel Aaron about how she went from writing 2,000 words a day to 10,000. Yes, you read that right. Here are brief explanations of her tips, with a link to the details in her blog post. She’s also written a book available for only 99 cents, which you can buy on Amazon, that details the process.

Side 1: Knowledge or Know What You’re Writing Before You Write It
After realizing a scene she’d written was a mess, Aaron discovered that if she scribbled out a short-hand version of what she planned to write on a pad of paper, she could quickly spot any writing pitfalls and more efficiently and quickly finish the scene, upping her word count.

Read more

Nov 6

2 Comments

Get out of your reader’s way with these tips

Are you getting in your reader’s way? Getting in the way can take many forms. At the Vegas Valley Book Festival Saturday, young adult author Matt de la Peña presented a workshop about this very topic.

Here’s what he had to say:

Don’t bog down your story’s beginning. Be wary of loading it down with too many details, characters and too much backstory. Let the story unfold in a timely way. Read more

Nov 2

2 Comments

How I Write: More articles about the daily routines of well-known authors

If you’ve entered the NaNoWriMo zone, you may find it useful to draw inspiration from published authors.

These novelists reveal the details of their daily writing routines.

Tim Lott, Emma Donoghue, Esther Freud, Ian Rankin, Lionel Shriver, and Maggie O’Farrell.

The interviews were published as part of a feature The Guardian published called How to Write a Book in 30 Days.

Feel free to share how you write in the comments below.

Oct 31

1 Comment

A six-stage plan for writing your Nano novel in 30 days

Just in time for the NaNoWriMo kickoff Nov. 1, I found a series of articles on The Guardian online outlining a six-stage plan for writing a book in 30 days. The series is part of a 32-page supplement delivered free to Guardian readers in its Oct. 20 edition.

The 30-day plan includes handy worksheets and details about:

  • Creating setting, plot, outline, and preliminary characters
  • Researching your idea Read more

Oct 29

2 Comments

A good story or good writing: What’s more important?

What’s more important: A good story or good writing?

My cousin asked me this question recently as I was giving him tips to build out a series of travel essays he’d been working on.

I want to be able to say that both are equally important, but I think a good story is the first priority. Good writing comes in the revision.

Here are a few pieces of advice I gave him as he sets out on his writing journey to ensure he’ll write a good story AND write it well.

Create a reading list. We should always be reading but when I start a writing project, I like to create a custom reading list for that project. I advised my cousin to read books in the same genre as he expects to write. I always like the “Best American Series” books, so I suggested he add The Best American Travel Writing 2012to his list. Read more

Oct 25

1 Comment

Enter the inspiration zone to generate story ideas

Tanya Lloyd Kyi has a prescription for filling blank pages: Freewrite with childlike abandon. Kyi shared tips about writing and generating ideas in her workshop, “The Inspiration Zone: Practical ways to generate and sustain ideas,” at the Surrey International Writers’ Conference Oct. 19-21.

Kyi said that, as a child, she wrote constantly and didn’t worry about who saw it. But things change when you get older.

“We can find ourselves in a straitjacket worrying about what we’re allowed to write about and not write about,” she said. “Sometimes we have to cast away those doubts and just write.”

Writing prompts can spark ideas for new stories. Read more

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »