Hello, fellow NaNo-ers. I LOST NANOWRIMO! Hooray! Why am I cheering? Why am I pleased about this? I’ll tell you why! I only lost because I ran out of plot. I never really expected my story, which I think is called Perish, but that may change, to need the length of a standard novel. It’s really…

When creating balanced characters, it is important to take an inventory of their merits and flaws to be certain that they are well-rounded. Flaws are interesting. They create obstacles and make our characters seem human (or elf, or vampire…) Flaws make the story relatable, even if the flaw is so awesome/detrimental that it alienates the…

Thanksgiving is here. Last year I posted a list of things I am thankful for as a New Year’s Eve recap on my Facebook notes. This year I decided I had best do it on my blog for Thanksgiving. Here is a non-exhaustive list of the things I am thankful for this year.   JL…

On Black Friday in 2007, 15 minutes in to my shift at a Target store in Nashua New Hampshire, I saw a grown man climbing the shelves on the back wall of electronics to pull down Guitar Hero bundles. Now, climbing shelves is against Target policy for three very good reasons: That merchandise is located…

NaNoWriMo is nearly half over. I am at 23303 words (which is 46.6% done). Though I can’t guarantee I’ll have enough plot to make it to 50k, I’ve only had one day where I didn’t meet my word count because I had a horrible stomach virus. I feel confident that I will finish. I may…

I love to support Indie writers and I LOVE my husband and my sister-in-law even more. Kyle Strickland (the beau) wrote the story for Sunshine’s Night Out, an adorable children’s book about a real hamster that I helped pick out to purchase. Carly Strickland, who also helped design the Olympia Heights: The Pantheon cover and…

An open letter to the guy who wrote this classist piece of self-gratification for The Economist: I think your article is arrogant. You missed the real point. The point of NaNoWriMo is not that writing a novel is easy; NaNoWriMo merely points out that it is a skill, just like any other, that if you sat…

by JL Bryan ★★★★★ I’ve been working on reading more Indie books, which is hard because I still have so many classic books to read and so many school books to read… my reading list is like my Netflix queu (I’m adding titles at a rate faster than I can consume them). I did get…

Writing research is a key element of preparation for any new project. You can start writing off the top of your head, but the juices will flow a lot better if you get all of the basics in a file before you start. Quick stops to open a word document to recall where your hero…

Here are some amazing mock writing tips for NaNoWriMo: Screw quality, you need word count. Time to lorem ipsum the last 6 chapters of your book. #nanowrimo — Fake NaNoWriMo Tips (@FakeNNWMTips) November 30, 2011 Find: “said”, Replace with: “shouted defiantly”. You’re welcome. #nanowrimo — Fake NaNoWriMo Tips (@FakeNNWMTips) November 29, 2011 Michael Crichton had…

It’s usually not a good practice to show off your rough drafts to the whole world. However, this is November and NaNoWriMo is about writing without stopping to edit; in this case it might be appropriate to share my unedited draft. In the last 50 minutes I’ve written 1,259 words. That’s only 408 words away…