Writing Craft

Once More With Feeling: Revision Series

My amazing YA author-in-awesomeness Heather Demetrios (with whom I’m hosting the Pneuma 2018 Writing Retreat) has put together and AH-MAZING interview series all about revision called: Once More With Feeling! If you fear revision, psyche yourself out, or feel like you have to write a perfect first draft, then this series is for you. Revision…

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Bring on 2018!

Happy New Year friends! I can’t believe it’s almost 2018! Where did the year go? And where have I been? Holy-you-didn’t-blog-for-months-Batman! It’s true. I’ve been distracted. I took a job teaching 9th and 10th grade English at a local high school and BOY-OH-BOY I have mad respect for teachers. This job is HARD! I want…

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Video: What Is Profluence?

Have you heard of this fancy MFA creative writing term called profluence? Proflu-whaaaaaat? Yep, it’s a complete mouthful! Profluence is a big scholarly MFA word that I’d never heard of until I was in creative writing school. It’s coined by John Gardner and it refers to the overall connective tissue, flow and energy of your novel,…

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Killing Your Darlings

You know those scenes that you LOOOOOOOVE, but you feel like you can’t cut? You know the ones. They’re the scenes that turn you into a frothing angry velociraptor when someone suggests you might cut them. The scenes your beta-readers keep mentioning might not be necessary, and you’ve pretty much lost all faith in your beta readers…

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