At the start of 2018 I got a round of feedback that was, well, like a fire hose of information. It took me some time to figure out how to analyze it all (you can find that here: How to Process an Edit Letter (with spreadsheets)). While I was working ...
This song by The Beatles is definitely my revision anthem this year. Aside from being a beautiful song, it's also full of yearning. And that is what revising UNCHURCHED has been like for me: a lot of yearning. Why can't it just BE the book I want ...
I'm probably the last to the "Year in Review" party, but I have a good excuse! The mountain behind my house was on fire. Literally. See, where we live is very dry and fireworks are banned in the entire municipality. But, someone decided to celebrate ...
It's nearly that time again: National Novel Writing Month. Every November I and thousands of other writers challenge ourselves to write 50,000 words in just 30 days. It's a big goal, and it's really hard, and it's a lot of fun. It's also the way I dr ...
Things haven't exactly gone as predicted this year. My habit, in years past, has been to spend the whole summer before NaNo preparing. I outline the hell out of it, which frees my mind up from worrying about plot to concentrate on prose. This year I ...
I'm impatient to get going this year. I mean, there's always some impatience going in, but this year feels stronger than in the past. It's a mixture of excitement and anxiety. And just plain, "But I wanna!" I realize that I didn't actually blog abou ...
All day I've been on tenterhooks. The last week has had an element of the surreal. The last month even more so. Today the winners and finalists for the Young Adult Romance Writers of America's 2017 Rosemary contest were announced. My manuscript, IN ...
It's time for #PimpMyBio! Every year Pitch Wars hopefuls post fun profiles of themselves to share with the community. Pitch Wars is a contest where the prize is a mentor to help you revise your book. Learn more about Pitch Wars at organizer Brenda Dr ...
This is the second major good news of the last couple of weeks. I actually learned about it around the same time I got into #QueryKombat (Round 2 Entry), but didn't want to say anything until finalists were announced. The Rosemary is an award given ...
I was selected for QueryKombat! QK is a contest where queries and novel excerpts are pitted against each other, bracket-style, until the strongest query is reached. I'm on Laura Heffernan's team, competing with the query for IN HER OWN SKIN, my YA ...
Hello mentors and aspiring mentees! I'm Bronwen, host of this-here blog. I write YA that typically falls in the realms of contemporary, fantasy or historical, nearly always centering around a strong female lead. I volunteer with my local writing com ...
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The #WIPjoy hashtag and prompts were started by writer Bethany Jennings. It made for a really nice little community of people encouraging one another. The writing community at large is very supportive, and #WIPjoy was all about the love. The feature ...
Or rather, an ode to Bridget. BRIDGET JONES helped keep my sanity intact on a very long flight. (Johannesburg to JFK is about 17+ hours.) I had bought it and THE EDGE OF REASON at the airport and I'm so glad I did. Every minute accounting of fat c ...
Well, it took me until almost the 11th hour, but I made it. This year I managed to stay above par almost the entire month. I built up a four day buffer. I lost it over the Thanksgiving break. Pies (from scratch, mind you) Turkey Day V ...
Today I broke 44k, which means my win is within the week. According to the official site calculations, I'll finish on the 25, which is a very comfortable win and right on target for my goal of 55k by the end of the month. Oh yes, I may finish early ...
Whaddaya know? 14 chapters and approximately 100 pages in, I hit a slump. There's this theory that says that about 100 pages into a novel, most people hit a wall. It's around the 20-25k mark. Coincidentally, this is typically in the second week of N ...
So, I might be cheating just a little bit. The official rules for NaNoWriMo state: Just be sure to only count words written during the month. Now, I have about 15k of a previous draft of GISELLE sitting on my hard drive. It covers quite a bit of t ...
So, how's that fancy graph thing working out? Not. So. Hot. As you can see, I'm well below the plan. But, Days 1 and 2 both managed to beat the daily minimums, so there's that. Day 1 was a blast. We held a midnight KOP at a diner and I wrote over ...
I first heard about National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) in 2003. It was my senior year of high school and I was game to try. I was, after all, preparing for a career as a novelist. The project I started, still known as UNTITLED MOBSTER CAPER, ha ...
Scrivener does a lot of nifty things. I think most people are aware by now that it has a cork board/index card function. Each text file has an accompanying information card, where you can put things like a description of what the file contains. These ...
I've been tagged for the 7/7/7/ #PitchWars Challenge by Verna Austen. Here are the rules: Go to page 7 of your WIP. Scroll down to Line 7. Share the next 7 sentences in a blog post. After the excerpt, tag 7 other writers to continu ...
This post is inspired by the #PitchWars mentors, who have said time and again that this contest is about community. Finding friends, CPs, commiserators, etc. And it occurred to me, "Why am I not talking DIRECTLY to the other wannabe mentees? We're ho ...
Final thoughts on Giselle before I switch back to Unchurched. A playlist! https://rd.io/i/Rl4WzlAvlVZs/ Giselle's playlist is dreamy, ethereal. It's a mix of Florence + the Machine, Oh Land, Lana Del Ray, and Lorde with some Mumford & Sons, Nor ...
