A week ago, I went to see a collegiate production of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. I know it isn't groundbreaking blog fodder--especially when there is legit drama happening all over my city this week--but I do like to share things that are relevant to writing. Which this post will be. Eventually. First, some important background information: This production was at my alma mater, where drama isn't a major.  I'm pretty sure that this is still the only production during the academic year. I "acted" for this theater troupe for 5 years. I have zero acting ability outside my feigning enjoyment from horrible gift ideas. I went to this play as an additional level of support for a friend, who wasn't even involved in this production. (Which is a totally separate story and not mine to share.) I totally admit that I embarked on a Twitter spree during the production heckling a lot of what I saw. Don't get me wrong, I do acknowledge the amount of ...

One of my favorite shows in the last decade was PRISON BREAK. If you never heard of it, here's the blurb from imdb.com : Due to a political conspiracy an innocent man is sent to death row and his only hope is his brother who makes it his mission to deliberately get himself sent to the same prison in order to break the both of them out from the inside out. Each episode ended in such a way that you had to tune in for the next episode. All characters were fleshed out, including the most deplorable character introduced. And the planning behind the prison break? It totally proves how important detail is. WARNING: THE NEXT PARAGRAPH CONTAINS SLIGHT SPOILERS In Season 1, everything rides upon the plan Michael put in place prior to his incarceration. Michael laid out the entire escape plan on his body, all the way down to how he and his brother will make it out of the country. At one point, part of Michael’s tattoo gets damaged. This jeopardizes the escape. This example illustrates ...

Fact: revision is part of the writer life. Further fact: Revision is fuck all hard. You can see where this is going. The point of revision is to take that amazing previous draft and make it that much more awesome. If you Google “how to revise a novel,” you’ll get over 12,000 search results. You can even learn some revision tips here by reading Susan Dennard’s guest post . While all of these posts give you incredible information to make your revision process smoother, faster, more productive, none of them share tricks to maintain your composure under the red pen. Scenes and characters you have lovingly slaved over are about to be sliced and reformed. How the hell can you go through this without crying? 1. Curse and yell. A lot.   The angrier you get at your WIP, the less painful your revisions will be. Make sure you practice saying, “WHY!?” and “You fucking asshole” to the point where a diagnosis of Tourette’s might be in order. It doesn’t matter, because swearing like a trucker...

Six weeks ago, I was laid off from the day job. The same day job that should've only lasted three weeks in 2007. This fact hasn't softened the blow and I've been staving off a major bout of emo-ness for weeks. This totally explains why I still haven't cleaned the basement. Unless you've been laid off or are very close (read: married or related) to someone who has been laid off, you might not realize what a slap in the face the situation is. You've been rejected. The company that you've worked for has essentially left you for someone else. Yeah, I know there's circumstances like budget cuts or reorganizations, but it doesn't matter at this point. You feel worthless. It's very easy to fall in to the trap of doing nothing while on unemployment. At first, it's like you've taken a few days off from the day job. You sleep in, stay up late, wear a crazy amount of lounge pants. Then, a month has gone by. The dishes pile up and you're work...

Every Wednesday, YA Highway asks their readership a simple question to answer on your blog. Once you answer, you link your blog in the comments for other readers to hop on board. This is Road Trip Wednesday. Today's topic: Per Sarah's August post ( http://bit.ly/qi9Ed1 ), what kind of writing coach do you need? What kind are you? I think about this from time-to-time because who doesn't want somebody cheering you on while you work and making sure you don't quit? Despite my self-esteem issues and my total bouts of "I suck," I don't want you to kiss my ass. That's not going to make me a stronger writer. I want someone who will tell me what's wrong when they crit me, but also let me know what's working. If I'm stuck, I want someone who is there to help me brainstorm my way through the problem. Basically, I want a Danielle*. As for myself, if I was a writing coach, I'm not sure what kind I am. My mood dictates a lot about my coach...

The suggested word count to beat NaNoWriMo is 1,667 words per day, every day. November is a short month. If you're in the US, it's even shorter because of things like Thanksgiving and Black Friday. With several days out of commission, you need to be super-focused when it comes to writing and front load your word count. I understand my methods won't work for everyone in The Lurkdom. I'm lucky in having way too much free time, no children, and a husband that's totally on board with me hiding away with a computer and doing nothing else. During the first week of NaNoWriMo, I like to exceed the daily word count goals . Since you're in the honeymoon phase of writing anyway, this shouldn't be difficult. Instead of a daily goal of 1,667 words, round it up to 2,000. Even that small of a bump, gives you five free days. The first few days of NaNoWriMo, I aim to double my daily word count so that way I have more days to play with in case there's a day where my...

It's that time of year, not of foliage or way-too-soon Christmas decorations, but of words and words and words. That's right. It's NaNoWriMo time. If you're new on the block, this weird word stands for National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. Sounds crazy, right? To quote the Cheshire Cat, "We're all mad here." In order to successfully complete NaNoWriMo, you need an attack plan. There are many ways to achieve this, but since this is my blog real estate, I'm going to share with you what works for me. Plotcards involve index cards and ideas for scenes. If you're a pantser, this is the closest plot method to what you're used to. I first learned about how to use them through Holly Lisle ,* but have modified the process since. Going into the plotcards, you will need to know who your characters are. They don't need to be fleshed out yet, but you should know the basics: name, sex, story role (p...

Today marks 4 years that Hubby and I nixed that "living in sin" thing. We had the world's shortest wedding ceremony and for one day understood how celebrities feel with the paparazzi. We also had cake. So with all of this in mind, I'm blogging ahead of time for once. By the time you read this, we will be stuffed with waffles and watching penguins swim as our anniversary date. Onto business. There's been a lot of talk about inspiration on The Pie as of late*. I've covered images and WIPs, people who've inspired me , and pictures that have inspired my writing as a whole . Now we add a fourth. First, some background: this week I decided to scrap my original NaNo plan because I was too trapped in my head. This meant coming up with a new story. No pressure, right? No. None at all. Thank goodness there are some techniques for getting inspiration when you most need it. Snuggle with the cat. The White One's pliancy makes it too easy to cur...

Horrible movies. We've all seen them. Some people live for the craptacular*. The stilted dialogue and the horrible CGI make you giddy with glee. You've got your heckle down to a well-oiled machine. Hate or love them, bad movies do kinda rock. They rock even harder when you can learn from them. If you've followed The Pie for a while, you know that I've shared what you can learn about storyboarding by watching The Room . Did you can learn about tension by watching R Kelly's Trapped in the Closet? Yes, you can. Today we'll focus on the "read on prompt." For those in the Lurkdom who don't know what this means, it's when a scene or chapter ends in such a way that makes you want to read a bit more. The most common version of this is the cliffhanger. While R Kelly abuses the cliffhanger feature, he does the job of making you want to see what happens in the next scene. (That each scene grows a bit more ridiculous** is a totally different R Ke...

Every Wednesday, YA Highway asks their readership a simple question to answer on your blog. Once you answer, you link your blog in the comments for other readers to hop on board. This is Road Trip Wednesday. Today's Topic : What themes, settings, motifs, scenes, or other elements do you find recurring in your work? I'd love to say that I'm so freaking original that nothing from Story A shows up in Story B because as a writer's it's my job to make sure everything is fresh and unique and non-redundant. However, I can't. Some things just show up no matter what. One parent is always either dead or missing from the protagonist's life. And when I say missing, I do mean that in a "they've never physically been here" kind of way*. Sometimes both are gone. Project count: 4 The F-bomb shower. Found in early drafts only**, my love for this four-letter word gets showered across all dialogue and exposition. Project count: 4 Blonde girl who is e...

I realized that I haven't talked about the cats recently. If they knew this I'm sure there would be more mayhem at Chez Gregoire*. The reason for lack of cat stories I guess is because the focus at The Pie is slowly becoming more writing and writing life oriented. But Alicia, I love hearing about your less-than-normal felines. Aw, thanks. I love talking about my furry children too. Because you asked and I do love them, I figured it's time to do a representation of how an idea becomes a story a la The White One. I should point out that this isn't an in-depth representation as there are only so many photos that work and so much brainpower to use. You get a kernel of an idea. It's just a teeny thing, but it definitely catches your attention. This usually happens when you're involved in something else so you have to look around what's in front of you to examine this HIGHLY INTERESTING THING OUTSIDE THE WINDOW. This new idea is something GROUNDBREAK...

So part of the platform building campaign is challenges. Rachael posted the first one on Monday. The challenge? To write a piece of flash fiction that is 200 words or less that begins with the phrase "the door swung open." Optional parts of the challenge are to make it 200 words exactly and  to close out the piece with "the door swung shut." Now, if you know anything about me, I don't write short. It's a miracle I tweet as much as I do since brevity definitely ain't the soul of my wit. Because of this, it shouldn't surprise you that it took me three hours to come up with 200 words. But, I did it. *points to paragraphs below* No title yet, sorry! The door swung open. The conversation in the media room ceased. Dusk kept himself poised in the doorway until the shock of his arrival wore off. For the barrage of questions to begin.  Last night’s performance was magnifique. Of course they would want to know more about his inspiration, his moti...

Every Wednesday, YA Highway asks their readership a simple question to answer on your blog. Once you answer, you link your blog in the comments for other readers to hop on board. This is Road Trip Wednesday. Today's Topic : How do you beat writer's block? Sometimes I think the ladies at YA Highway read my mind. I'm beginning to burn out from my frantic writing pace for Camp NaNoWriMo* and the other night I started five separate scenes before I found one that I could actually write. I can feel the writer's block creeping upon me. Here are three things I do to trick writer's block into retreating. Free Write. I open up Write or Die and set the timer for at least fifteen minutes. During the free write I examine why I'm blocked, what directions the story can potential go to, and use the word "cheese" or "blah."** Fifteen minutes is usually long enough to clear out whatever is trapped. Exercise. If the free writing doesn't work, an...

It's Friday. That means it's time for Paper Hangover's Friday Fives. Today's topic ? Oh, apps. You little things that can become such a time sink for yours truly*. I don't really have an addictive personality, but there are certain things that make me forget outside things exist. Take this example: back in dial up only days, The Lou had an old computer in our basement. This computer had Tetris. I would shoot down there for a "quick game" only to re-emerge five hours later. So because my favorite non-productive apps are games like Tetris, I should probably focus on things that tie into writing. You're shocked, I know. Write or Die . I actually paid the $10 for the download so I can use it when I'm not attached to the internet. You set a word count goal and a time limit and -BOOM!- you write to your heart's content. It kinda forces you to turn off your editor. Freedom . My love of all things shiny runs deep. This means I have a cons...

I should probably let you all in on a not-so-secret secret: I'm anti-social. This totally contradicts the amount of time I spend on the Twitters and here, but sometimes that's how I roll. Anyway. Listing 5 writing communities shouldn't be too hard. Twitter . This is where I've made a lot of my writing connections. The #amediting and #amwriting hashtags are a great way to remind you you're not like Connor MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod. And since I'm chained at a desk all day*, this is a good thing. NaNoWriMo . The Boston WriMos have been awesome. It's well past November and I still meet up with them weekly for write ins. We'll overlook the fact that most of the time I'm so busy busting a gut that writing might not get done. Weekend of Awesome . I really can't stress enough how fantastic this weekend was and how awesome the ladies in it are. They've become my personalized writing community. I realize how lucky I am. SCBWI . Without SC...

Every Wednesday, YA Highway asks their readership a simple question to answer on your blog. Once you answer, you link your blog in the comments for other readers to hop on board. This is Road Trip Wednesday. Today's topic : What's the biggest writing / querying / publishing mistake you've made? Oi. I've been writing for a loooong time which means there's a long bucket list of things never to do again. Like writing a 100K YA contemporary, Or being too cocky in a query letter, Or not doing proper agent research. These are just a few of my many mistakes. But the biggest one of all has to be when I took every single piece of feedback my crit group gave me. This is the same crit group that birthed Nemesis, so that I listened to everything they said is crazy. Doing this added another 3 years on getting my WIP back on track*. I was so intent on everyone liking my writing that I forgot to listen to my instinct. I won't be making that mistake ever again....

We all have those moments where the ideas/words/brilliance don't come. If you're like me, these times when nothing ends up on the page mean a lot of bitchy behavior until the block passes. If you're also like me, you like to expedite that process. The question is how? I've talked about this before , but that was more geared to when your brain entirely too fried to do anything. This is just about getting those juices going. Music. Sometimes a song's lyrics is all I need to get a shiny new idea. In fact, I have a few kicking around the ole noggin that have yet to be developed. Books on craft. Believe it or not, a lot of scene ideas come to me when I'm reading a how to book. When I was revising Phoenix Rising, I was also reading Writing the Breakout Novel. While the things that popped up didn't tie into what I was reading, the nonfiction allowed that other part of my brain to relax from the super tight hold it's usually in. Exercise. Not that I've...

Zombie Thursdays is a weekly feature with guest blogger, Miranda. You can read more about her here . To be honest, I feel like a zombie today. I don't know why... change in weather? Not enough sleep? Too much sleep? The "excitement" of having to go to work in fifty minutes? I'm really just not sure. But usually when I'm feeling like this, I like to surf the interwebs for some good zombie material. Today I stumbled upon the Zombie World News website. The website is very interesting-- part news reporting, part collective writing project, part social commentary, with lots of other parts thrown into the mix. The majority of the page seems to be an archive for various news articles from around the world and chronicles the outbreak of a zombie virus known as necro-mortosis. The articles begin around 2006 (although these are back dated, the site isn't that old) with the first signs of the virus emerging in Haiti. The rest of the news stories come from differen...

The Room is our generation’s Rocky Horror*. It’s at best a D-List movie with horrible stock footage and acting right out of a CCD production of Best Christmas Pageant Ever. The writing is Nemesis-worthy. Basically, if The Room was being graded for actual artistic merit, it would beyond fail. However! The Room is a great learning experience. Tommy Wiseau’s “masterpiece” is a great example on what not to do in writing from character confusion, sloppy dialogue, poor pacing, and more.

It's kind of hard not to get good advice when you're at a conference for three days. Even at the crappiest of conferences, you should be able to take back one nugget of information. Since I'm an avid note-taker, I have pages of information. Unfortunately, I can't share everything with you. But I can share a few thoughts. After reviewing my notes* from the weekend, I found some of the most memorable bits of information could be broken down into three main groups. Plot and Subplot "When plotting, list all possible assets, obstacles, allies, and rivals as they relate to your protagonist--you never know what can be used." -- J.L.Bell "Subplots come from your primary characters' secondary wants or your secondary characters' primary wants." -- Sarah Aronson Critiquing, Rejection, and Distance "Listen with 'elephant ears' when being critiqued. This helps you be more open-minded." -- Lin Oliver "It's important...