My latest published novel, Safe Thus Far, was a finalist for the 2022 Thorpe Menn Literary Excellence Award. Several of my novels have been nominees for the award in earlier years, and I was pleased that this book was a finalist. My novel was in good company. The winner of […]
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Congratulations to NaNoWriMo Participants This Year! Keep Writing!
Last year in November I posted about my progress on NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), when writers attempt to write a 50,000-word novel in thirty days. I hit the target, then blew past it! I toyed with doing NaNoWriMo again this year. But I decided the timing wasn’t quite right. […]
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Will I Do NaNoWriMo Again?
Forgive me one more post on NaNoWriMo. Now that it’s over, I’ve been asking myself whether I should do it again some year. Although there are some NaNoWriMo groupies who do it every year, I don’t think I’m one of them. In fact, I’m not sure I will ever participate […]
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NaNoWriMo 2020, Week 5 — FINAL TALLY (almost)
I finished the draft of this new novel on Thanksgiving Day. Since then, I’ve been filling in some gaps, trying to get to at least the NaNoWriMo pace each day. Through Sunday, November 29, I wrote 93,200 words. The NaNoWriMo pace for that period is 48,343 words, and my personal […]
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NaNoWriMo 2020, Week 4, and the Home Stretch
Through Sunday, November 22, my total word count is 77,400 words. The NaNoWriMo pace for that period is 36,674 words, and the pace I set for myself of 2,000 words/day would have put me at 44,000. Although my pace is slowing from the blistering 4,000 words/day of the first week, […]
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NaNoWriMo 2020: Well, I Did It. Now What?
From the start of the month through Sunday, November 15, I wrote over 57,000 words on my next novel. Whew! So, I satisfied the NaNoWriMo target of 50,000 words in a month. I actually hit 50,000 on Friday the 13th, so I guess it was a lucky day for me. […]
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NaNoWriMo 2020, Week 2 Is Underway
On Sunday, November 8, I hit 30,000 words! The NaNoWriMo pace for that period is 13,336 words, and my personal pace of 2,000 words/day is 16,000. So I have blown past my goals. I have never written 30,000 words in a month, let alone in eight days. And I’ve been […]
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NaNoWriMo 2020, Off To a Great Start
I’ve mentioned NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) before—the national endeavor by authors around the world to write 50,000 words on their novels during the month of November. I’ve always had excuses for why I shouldn’t participate. The timing never seemed right. I’ve never written more than 20,000 words in a […]
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Back to Beginnings: My Next Writing Project
Perhaps it seems odd that I just announced the publication of my last novel, My Hope Secured, a week ago, and now I’m writing about beginning another novel. But the only way I know to improve as a writer is to keep writing. It’s a very different feeling facing a […]
Continue readingPlotting a Novel – Try this for NaNoWriMo
I wish I knew more about plotting a novel. It’s one of the reasons I kick myself for not beginning my writing career earlier in life. If I’d spent my twenties starving in a garret as a writer, I’d be through the worst of the learning curve now. I’d have […]
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