All posts tagged: writing conference

Write on, Wednesday: Carrying On

Published by

By Leslie Lindsay Okay, so we left off last Wednesday talking about the 7 key reasons your manuscript blood, sweat, and tears is rejected by agents/editors via a Susan Meier’s workshop I attended.  Well, what do you say we continue with some hints and tips for how you may go back to that keyboard (after you have cried your heart out, stomped around in a funk, and eaten your weight in chocolate). If the rejection comes back with something like, “Nothing seems to happen in this story.”  Well, you have a plot problem.  Go back and speed-read your manuscript.  Fast.  See what you can do to make it have a few more problems.  If you want to change something, that’s fine…but see if you can tweak just a few words here and there so that you are not drastically re-writing the whole darn thing.  You may want to make a list of 20 here…what are 20 things you can do to add some more varirty to your plot.  It’s okay to be outrageous here.  You …

Write On, Wednesday: Knuckle Cracking and Time

Published by

By Leslie Lindsay So, I just got back from this writing conference.  Let me tell you, writing is so much more than cracking your knuckles and sitting down to your keyboard, coffee cup nearby and a blank slate on which to pound out the world’s best novel.  Oh, no! Here’s a quote from a session I attended:  “Easy reading is damn hard writing.”  Yep. I am still trying to get my bearings after being back.  It’s overwhelming in a sense.  You take a step out of your “real life” and surround yourself in the throes of writers and the writing life and it all becomes a little bit…well, suffocating.  But I say that in a good way.  You eat, breathe, and sleep writing.  Really.  I dreamed about all of the crazy interactions I had over the course of the two days I attended the conference.  Lunch and dinner is with the same group of people.  The topic of conversation:  why writing, of course! My totebag is full of notes, goodies, and loads of free books …