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 [...]

Bob Mayer Posted “Goal Setting For Writers” at Genreality yesterday. This year of writing for me has been all about goals. Making them, working towards them and achieving them. Here soon I’m going to take a first look at how I compare to the 5 Year Plan I posted a while back. See where I’m [...]

Surviving a month doesn’t sound like much, but it is when you’ve been sick two months in a row. I was already run-down from being sick at the beginning of February, and then I caught the bad cold bug that’s been going around. That wiped me out! Unable to go to work for a week, [...]

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 [...]

A few weeks ago another writer asked me how many projects I’m currently working on. I had to stop and think. It was way past three, and at that point I can’t remember. Get out the lists! So, I spent a little time making out a list. Wow, what an eye-opener. As one of my [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]