I fancy myself a writer.
Write a scene that puts your hero and heroine in close proximity with one another where they get to touch each other. How much is up to you, but maybe hold off on actually letting them “do the deed” for the time being. Use this as an opportunity to build the tension.
Continue reading “2014 NaNoWriMo Trashy Romance Challenge: Act 2 Scene Assignment 2”
Do your hero and heroine now hate each other on the surface while secretly wanting to jump into bed with each other? If so, great work! Now you’re ready to begin writing Act Two of your trashy romance novel. For the next few days, I will give you brief scene ideas to keep you moving and hopefully keep your middle from sagging. Here’s the first:
Continue reading “2014 NaNoWriMo Trashy Romance Challenge: Week 2/Act 2”
The opening scene of my trashy romance novel is hilarious. Anyway, I think it is. I could be wrong.
I’m putting my heroine – who, by the way, is terrified of water – on a boat. She comments to her sister, “It’s only a three-hour tour.” Hmmm… what do you think I have planned for my heroine?
If you’re not giggling whilst writing your trashy romance novel, then you’re not doing it right. You’re more likely to finish it if it’s fun! Continue reading “Are you laughing yet?”
Okay, so I’m not going to post assignments every single day this month. I don’t have time for that. What I will do is set you up with a three-act story structure and give you some ideas for what types of scenes you should be writing at various stages of your novel. Hopefully you wrote chapter one yesterday, and now you are ready to develop your first act in more detail.
Act One is all about writing scenes that will further expound on the notion that your hero and heroine, while wildly attracted to one another, are simply not “right” for one another. Continue reading “2014 NaNoWriMo Trashy Romance Challenge: Day 2”
Well, here it is. November 1st. Day One of NaNoWriMo, and Day One of our Trashy Romance Novel Writing Challenge. I know you have a lot of writing to do, so I will get right to the day’s writing assignment: Continue reading “2014 NaNoWriMo Trashy Romance Challenge: Day 1”
It’s amazing how often logistical issues can get in the way of our writing. I, like many writers, have tried a variety of techniques in an attempt to make writing – wherever I may be – as easy as possible. Because we all know, the easier it is, the more likely we are to do it. If it seems like too much trouble to haul your ancient, seven-pound laptop along when running errands, then you probably will end up just not doing it.
Yeah, I said seven pounds. I am a starving artist, after all. Of course I don’t have an iPad!
If you were writing a novel a century ago, your choices of communication modes were probably quite limited. You basically either wrote your novel out longhand, or you tapped it out on a bulky typewriter. Did they even have portable typewriters yet a century ago? Continue reading “NaNoWriMo logistics: How are you planning ahead?”
Can it be mid-October already? NaNoWriMo is right around the corner, and I am just now getting around to thinking about it. As usual, my original plan for this year was to just skip it. But as November draws near, I find myself once again itching to see if I can knock out a novel in thirty days.
Last year, I did not. While I did manage to conquer the quest for 50,000 words, my NaNoWriMo project was not, in any way, a novel. Last year, I proved to myself that I am capable of writing 50,000 words in one month. This year, I think it’s time to step it up and write 50,000 words of an actual novel. Continue reading “NaNoWriMo Trashy Romance Novel Challenge”
A few years ago, my sons and I started a new family tradition that they look forward to almost as much as Trick-or-Treating. We like to call it Smashing Pumpkins Day.
This day falls on November 1st, the day after Halloween, when the boys officially gain permission to take our now-rotting jack o’ lanterns out to the marsh behind our apartment complex and smash them to BITS! They love it.
What could be more fun than smashing pumpkins? Of course, if you smash someone else’s pumpkins, you’re a jerk. But there’s no harm in smashing your own pumpkins once their poor faces have sunken in. So today, as soon as my kids get home from school, they will gather up our jack o’ lanterns first thing and drag them out to the marsh. Each year, the boys come up with new and creative ways to pulverize their pumpkins. Let’s just say, we like to get our money’s worth. Continue reading “Happy Smashing Pumpkins Day! (Oh yeah, and NaNoWriMO!)”
November is nigh. It’s time to decide. Are you jumping into National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) this year?
Last year was my first shot at National Novel Writing Month. I didn’t get very far at 11,654 words, but I still found NaNo a valuable experience. As I mentioned in a previous post, last year’s NaNoWriMo really pushed me to look at my writing process and figure out this whole outlining of the novel business. Continue reading “Who’s doing NaNoWriMo this year?”
Isn’t it just like me to change my mind at the last minute and start over from scratch? Well, that’s exactly what I am looking at, Day 1 of NaNoWriMo. After all the preparation I did, planning for my original novel, I was having a very hard time being passionate about the story. I think I had some good ideas, but I really wasn’t happy with where the story was going. I was dreading getting up this morning to start working that outline into a novel. Continue reading “NaNoWriMo: Starting from scratch on Day 1”
Write on the World 