Some wisdom for a Friday

The Guide to Literary Agents is one of the most useful blogs I read.

Some wisdom from the last few posts:

The Top 10 reasons agents stop reading

10. Overdone description that doesn’t move the story forward
9. Spoon-feeding the reader what the character is thinking
8. Having the characters address each other repeatedly by name, as in, “John, let’s go!”
7. Introducing a character with first and last name, as in, “John Smith entered the room.”
6. Beginning a story with dialogue
5. Opening with a cliché
4. Yanking the reader out of the action with backstory
3. Not giving the reader a sense of place or where the story is going
2. Characters are MIA until bottom of page 2
1. Telling instead of showing

And a quote from an interview with Greg Daniel that all writers need to pay attention to:

“Read deeply and widely in the area you want to be a writer. It seems that so often I receive queries where not only are the authors not at a point where they should be approaching agents yet, but they also appear to not even be astute readers of the categories they’re writing in. In addition to writing, writing, and rewriting in order to be a better writer, I’m a firm believer that the more intelligently you read, the better writer you’ll become.”

Mirrored from Stephanie Gunn.

Getting back into the groove

Today’s progress:

Project: White Raven draft one

New words: 2,316

Total words: 53,251

Goal: 100k

Writing:

A good day.  I feel like I’m back in the groove of things - posting metrics is helping me already, I think.   I am capable of self-motivation, but I am also capable of much self-deception if I don’t make myself accountable.

I could easily keep on going today, as I know what the next scenes are going to be, but I’m making myself stop.  Stopping mid-scene or mid-flow actually works for me, since it gives me momentum to start the next day.

I’m considering yet again doing some work on the weekends.  I like the idea of it, but it never seems to pan out for me.  I like having those two days to be slack and catch up on other stuff.  Hm.  And I am much feared of burning out.  For now, I guess, working only on workdays works for me.

Real life:

Did laundry and hung it out, will get it down off the line soon.  I may head out into the garden for a short while now, too.  I haven’t done any real exercise today apart from some light housework today, and my muscles are reminding me of that fact.  Plus the garden needs some real attention.

Mirrored from Stephanie Gunn.