Posts tagged writing

Freewrite to jumpstart ideas!

Try different writing exercises to jump-start ideas or work out a problem in your story. I “freewrite” to accomplish both of these things. Using a pen and paper, I write for 15 minutes about whatever has me stumped. I keep my hand moving by writing whatever is going through my mind. If I can’t think of anything to say, that’s what I write down…I can’t think of anything to say. What’s up with that? I’m hungry. I don’t want to do this…until my mind clicks in again on the topic at hand. This is stream of consciousness writing, and it usually leads to an answer to my question about the story or brings up new ideas.

Jennifer Archer is the author of Through Her Eyes and The Shadow Girl for HarperTeen.

Do you write romance? Submit your manuscript for consideration to Avon Impulse, the digital imprint of Avon Books. They’re looking for well-written contemporary, historical, paranormal, Regency, suspense, fantasy, urban fantasy, et al.

And Harper Voyager, the global SF & F imprint of HarperCollins, has opened a submissions portal. For a limited time, you can submit your work of fantasy, horror, science fiction, supernatural, and paranormal fiction for adults & young adults.

Good luck!

I’d never heard of Louis Bayard. Maybe that’s my bad—he’s penned several historical fiction thrillers that have been well reviewed, and he’s written for the New York Times and Washington Post and was on staff at Salon.com. But I’d never heard of him.

About a year ago, my mom met him at an event at St. John’s College in Annapolis, MD, and bought me a copy of his novel The Black Tower because she knows I love historical fiction. The story takes place in Paris after the Revolution, and I’m a crazy Les Misérables fan. Close enough, she thought. She even got it signed for me: “Lisa, Good luck with your writing. Best, Louis Bayard.” My mom is very cool.

I thanked her when she gave it to me, put it on a bookshelf, and didn’t think any more about it for the better part of a year.

Recently, when my book club decided to read a book I’d already ripped through, I felt desperate for a good novel to sink into and I looked through the books on my shelf and came across The Black Tower again. I flipped it open to the first chapter, and with one sentence I got hooked. It reads, “I’m a man of a certain age—old enough to have been every kind of fool—and I find to my surprise that the only counsel I have to pass on is this: Never let your name be found in a dead man’s trousers.”

That’s all it took. More proof, if anybody needs it, that the first sentence of any book is the most important. I’m very happy to report that Bayard follows up that sentence with so many other good sentences and descriptions (“a calico dress and a calico face, cottony with years”—ahhhh!) that each night, I can’t wait to get in bed, open the book again, and see what the mysterious Mr. Bayard has in store for me. I’m so glad I made his acquaintance.

—Lisa Chambers, Managing Editor, TV Guide Magazine

@TVGMChambers

Have Faith, Eat Snacks, Get a Cat

A biggie for me: Don’t give up on your story just because it’s not coming out in this amazing, creative burst. Keep working.

Also, don’t give up on your story because the first draft is embarrassing and self-indulgent. Ninety percent of writing, for me, is sloughing off the bad stuff that I would never want anyone to see!

Keep a snack handy. Something crunchy.

You might want to adopt a cat. A cat will let you talk to her about all of your writing worries. She will let you throw toys at her and not accuse you of procrastinating. She may often look at you like you are crazy. but at least she is stuck with you. Unless she’s an indoor-outdoor cat.

Learn more about Jodi Lynn Anderson, author of Tiger Lily and Love and Peaches!