Writing Problems – Place for the Stolen

Edith Wharton on Writing a War Story…or a Love Story…or a Comedic Story…or a Story Story

In September 1919, Woman’s Home Companion published a lovely little nugget of story by Edith Wharton. “Writing a War Story” is the tale of Ivy Spang, a poetess-turned-short-story-writer. Working as a nurse in France during WWI, Miss Spang is commissioned by an editor at the magazine “The Man-at-Arms.” He tells her that he wishes her to…

How Do You Bounce Back From Time Away?

Last Tuesday I outlined my plan to exercise my writing muscles back into shape. Now, I haven’t written much in a few months so I’m feeling like I’m doing some heavy lifting without warming up. And apparently I’m not the only one feeling like this at the moment. One of my good friends, a playwright,…

Deadlines and Word Counts and Themes: Oh My!

Since November a huge amount of my creative energy has gone into my theatre instead of my writing. Which makes me neither happy nor sad, it’s just how it worked out — the focus went to one area and I produced good work in one medium instead of another. At the moment I’m trying to…

Historical Novels Before the Internet Existed. How?

This last hour or so I’ve been working on my WIP, which is a historical novel. It’s a little slow going, but I’ve written every day since the New Year, which is my goal. However, my internet went out about forty-five minutes ago. It has only just recently come back on. During this internet blackout,…

What Was Blocking Me: A Tuesday Post of Accountability

Hello Tuesday. Time to be held accountable! Last week and the week before I lamented my lack of progress. This week I’ve figured out what the problem was, and I think I’m kind-of recovering. It took agent Rachelle Gardner’s post on money and writing to talk me down from the thought process that was freezing…

The Pen Name Game

Agatha Christie is a household name. It’s understood that she wrote ground-breaking mysteries. Mysteries are not the only stories she wrote. Under the nom de plume of Mary Westmacott, she also wrote romances. Six to be exact: Absent in the Spring, A Daughter’s Daughter, The Burden, Giant’s Bread, Unfinished Portraitn, and The Rose and the…

We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Programming For a Flip-Out and a Resolution

Tabling a work-in-progress is never an easy thing to decide. Most writers’ advice I’ve heard advises that you should push through a tough hump, that you should keep going until the end, because only when you reach the end do you actually know what you have. Well, I think there are exceptions to this ‘rule’.…

Mentor of the Month: Justin Cronin: The Summer Guest and The Passage, a small critique on repetition

One of the things that writers are warned against is repetitiveness: Don’t repeat words too often if you’re not going for an effect. Don’t be repetitive in how you structure your sentences. Don’t start too many sentences or paragraphs with the same word. Don’t you see what I did there? (Hee hee. But it doesn’t…

Progress

After the Great Writing Race of 2010, I felt rather disappointed in my performance. Yes, sometimes life gets in the way, and a great many of the obstacles that presented themselves during the contest (husband’s lack of job, my overworking my own job) have resolved themselves at last! Hip, Hip, Hooray! But still…one of the…

Place for the Stolen

Category: Writing Problems

Edith Wharton on Writing a War Story…or a Love Story…or a Comedic Story…or a Story Story

How Do You Bounce Back From Time Away?

Deadlines and Word Counts and Themes: Oh My!

Historical Novels Before the Internet Existed. How?

What Was Blocking Me: A Tuesday Post of Accountability

The Pen Name Game

We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Programming For a Flip-Out and a Resolution

Mentor of the Month: Justin Cronin: The Summer Guest and The Passage, a small critique on repetition

Progress

Jenny Maloney

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