J.A. Marlow

Into the Forest Shadows On a world of valuable giant trees and intelligent animals, a red-cloaked headstrong teen struggles to save her family from a planetary conspiracy awaiting her at Grandmother’s house. The above 2009 NaNoWriMo book was the novel I used to go through Holly Lisle’s “How to Revise Your Novel” class. The class [...]

It’s hard to develop the thick skin necessary to accept crits. But then, writing is a difficult business to be in and a tough skin is essential. That said, when you receive a long and detailed crit that also includes negative responses, let yourself go through the steps of ‘mourning’ that your work isn’t perfect. [...]

The spreadsheet tracks hours for “National Novel Editing Month”, where the goal is to revise/edit for 50 hours in 31 days. It can be adapted and used for other months, as well, for anyone who wants to use it. I used as a base the spreadsheet that was offered last year, I rearranged and added [...]

New words are not all there is to writing. A finished first draft is only a first (big) step. And it’s the stuff that comes after and before a first draft that has been occupying my time. Revision of “Into the Forest Shadows,” the SF Little Red Riding Hood adaptation, is progressing at a good [...]

I’ve been writing ever since I could string letters together to form words, and it’s never stopped since. However, the big goal of some day making a living off my fiction writing has remained elusive. For a long time, the problem was the quality of writing. I know that isn’t the problem any longer but [...]

Nanoedmo is going okay. Not great, but okay. I’m doing well with the numbers. Out of 50 hours I’m standing at 40 hours last night. But it’s a good thing I did so much earlier in the week, as this last week has been horrendous. For 5 days, no editing at all. The only creativity [...]