Welcome to your Friday Morning FYI – my chance to share observations/wisdom/rants in short, easily consumed form.
This week’s FYI is neither observation nor rant nor wisdom, but instead a celebration:
A friend has launched a book! It’s all space-opera-y and genocide-y and romance-y and pew!-pew!-y. You should check it out 🙂
Thanks for reading,
{RDj}
I love my beta readers. All of them. If I could, I’d buy them Lexuses, just like artificial rich people do in those obnoxious say-I-love-you-at-Christmas-by-giving-them-a-car-with-a-bigass-bow-on-it commercials. Yes, that much.
If you’re not familiar, a beta reader is someone to whom you show your polished novel (not an early draft–that would be an alpha reader), and ask for feedback. In working with many of the same beta readers for my second novel I used for my first, I noticed things I hadn’t anticipated or previously spotted.
And when I notice stuff I think might be helpful, I stick in on here. You’re welcome, interwebz.
I attended a new (for me) writers group a few months ago, and one of the things we did was an exercise focused on not-using dialogue tags. The idea was simple: your characters (a nun and a drunk) should be identifiable by what they say and how they say it, without you tagging their dialogue. I just found my text buried in Evernote, and thought I’d toss it up here. What do you think? Did I pass?
—————————————
Who’s there?
Ugh, not so loud, will ya?
Who are you?
Sorry sister. Musta passed out. You should be proud. This might be the most comfortable dumpster I’ve ever slept in.
Saints, another one.
Another one what?
I told mother superior when that bar opened a block away we needed a lock on that fence.
And keep all this comfy trash to yourselves? Where’s your Christian charity? Not like you’re using it.
Please leave.
And go where? Ooo a chicken leg. How do you throw away a perfectly good chicken leg like this?
Please leave!
Fine. I’m going. God bless, sister.
—————————————
Thanks for reading,
{RDj}
Those who say National Novel Writing Month is about completing a fifty-thousand word novel in thirty days are filthy liars. It’s nothing of the sort. In truth, it’s about only one thing:
Continue reading “The Villains Guide to Winning #NaNoWriMo Part 1”
If you’re not familiar, NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) takes place in November (because screw turkey and family arguments), and is an occasion for you to do your darn’dest to crank out a 50,000 word novel between Halloween and December 1. I completed my first attempt in 2014, motivated by insanity and a desire to have the stupid badge on my blog. Thinking back on it, I get the shakes. It was awful. Torturous. Physical and mental anguish.
And you should do it.
Ron Writes Stuff 