Mining for Gold, and coming up with Silver

“It’s off to work we go”, and another draft we write. Writers want that epic, world-changing work. Poets put their souls into prose, and sometimes it’s less than a paragraph long. Novelists and short story writers create fantastic worlds and address challenging subjects in a complex weave. But, how long does it take to create that mind-blowing, world-peace conquering story? And, on a deeper note, when is it okay to let it go and be happy with what your wrote? This post seeks to answer such questions.

"Write Great Fiction" by James Scott Bell (Book Review)

When I first began writing--at least for reasons other than those forced upon me by the state and federal government--I had thought that writing a story would be relatively easy. I’ve read hundreds of books after all. You’ve got a hero, little romance, little action--and BAM. Bestseller.

After about 50,000 words I started to realize something was missing. As it turns out, it’s called a “plot,” and most professional writers highly recommend you have a pretty cohesive one.

If you have experienced a similar revelation or are just struggling to keep your story moving, then “Plot and Structure” by James Scott Bell might be is a good place to start. 

Expando-file of stories: Any remedies?

alpha-omegaorganizer.com/

At some point in a writer’s career, there’s an overflow of stories that defies the laws of physics. Sometimes, we just have too many, and it’s not always a good thing.

J, how can that be? Too many stories is better than not enough.
Hah! You know so little.

Writers are bad at focusing on one story for more than a few months at a time. J.K. Rowling is just a beast. An anomaly. And, she probably had some issues, too.

A Cloudy but bright forecast: Internet Writing Software

Courtesy of Google

It may not be Skynet, but cloud-computing and software in general are getting pretty powerful. Thanks to Microsoft, Google, Zoho, and OpenOffice.org, consumers have a wide array of Office software to utilize and much of it taking place in the cloud. Whatever their plans, there’s a way to do it. And, there are plenty of free options. But, for the purposes of this post, we’ll focus on the best products for writers, especially in the realm of collaboration.

If you have been following the blog at all, because we know that you’re religiously addicted to it, then you’ll remember our last blog was about Collaboration. Thus, here we discuss the actual software that you might use while involved in the art.