OK, I don’t know that my writing qualifies as dangerous, but it has been a year since I started this crazy experiment of being a full-time author. It’s been a while since I did a retrospective, so now seems like a good time! When I quit my day job, my counselor warned me that for…
Category: Writing Life
Format Your Manuscript Properly: How to Get Microsoft Word to Do What You Meant (Part 1)
So you’re submitting your manuscript Here’s the usual expected formatting: http://marycmoore.com/index.php/2016/01/09/how-to-format-your-fiction-submission/. But how do you get Word to do that? Level 1: Padawan I have Office 2016 on Windows 7, so your setup might look a little different. Try searching the term I give you and the version of Word that you have (e.g., “font…
Ingredients for a Successful Writers Retreat
How to have a successful writers (writers’? writer’s?) retreat, if you’re me: A low-distraction location. My author friend and I rented an AirBnB with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, and a living room—perfect for us, because it was exactly what we needed and no more. Bonus: it was decorated with tons and tons of…
How to finish the draft: maybe you need a deadline
I did it! It’s done! I wrote a decent draft of a whole novel! I would have celebrated, but I was too tired. You see, I was writing to a deadline—an honest-to-goodness deadline with money on the line and someone waiting to receive my manuscript. I almost didn’t make it, but, as it turns out,…
At least I’m not alone
As we’ve already established, I’m a terrible boss for myself. But at least I’m not alone.
Like a Boss: Writing a Book is (and isn’t) Like Writing Software
The other day, I was feeling bad about not getting enough writing done. Despite having written more than 45,000 words in just over two months, I wanted to have written more. Contrast that feeling to when I worked at a big tech company. As I grew in my career, I could put in a hard…
Forcing yourself to be honest…and realistic
Since I’ve been working on my novel full time, the first draft has grown from 0 to 33,000 words. Not bad! But that took two months, and I feel like I can do better (especially since this is the first draft and I’m working from a pretty good outline). I’ve been keeping track of how…
The More I Write…
…the more I want to write! That’s not a unique observation, but it’s definitely a new experience in my writing life. I’ve heard that when people first start a training regimen, running can be painful and a drudgery, but eventually they experience a “runner’s high.” Supposedly, they then start running because they like it! I…
Motivation I Didn’t Know I Had
I’m starting my fourth week of writing full-time. Fourth! Wow. As expected, I’ve had some days where it’s hard to get into the “groove” of writing, and some days where I didn’t manage my time well. I’ve also had some amazing days where I don’t want to stop writing. One benefit of writing full-time that…
Being a Full-Time Author: First Week Retrospective
Looking back over the past week is a habit widely recommended for evaluating progress and productivity. In my past life as a software developer, we called them “retrospectives,” and along with listing successes and problems (or “opportunities,” as my husband says), we would come up with one experiment we wanted to try for the upcoming…