For Writers
-
My New Way of Looking at the Writing Process
My mother affectionately calls me a magpie. Everywhere I went as a child, I stopped to pick up shiny things and noticed little details others missed, a trend that’s continued all the way through adulthood. One of the many ways this trait shows up in my life is a fascination with gemstones, crystals, and pearls. I have many smooth shells picked up from family trips to the beach and pretty rocks I saw glittering in rivers on the hikes we’ve taken in Cuba, the Carolinas, and California, just to name a few. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that, when I had this latest epiphany about my writing workflow,…
-
I Created a Road Trip-themed Word Crawl Game on Dorian to Help You Write a Novel
I feel so lucky for so many reasons. One of them is that I was born during autumn, my favorite time of year. Even better, I was born in November, which is National Novel Writing Month. And this year, I want to give my fellow writers a gift: a unique path to winning NaNoWriMo! First, What is NaNoWriMo? NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, is a challenge to write 50,000 words of a brand-new novel during the 30 days of November. The idea is to help creatives stop procrastinating and start writing while cheering each other on through the massive online community that’s grown up around it. There’s just one…
-
A Yearly Writing Schedule I Just Might Follow
In November of 2022, something magical happened. I “won” National Novel Writing Month by writing 50,010 words during November’s thirty days. And I’ve been chasing that high ever since. Apparently, I love the feeling of getting something done on a tight deadline. With 4thewords giving me daily deadlines in my writing life, I knew I could be unstoppable if I could pick a direction and stick with it. It turns out I also love numbers. (I know! I’m just as surprised as you are!) 4thewords gave me lots of delicious data to devour, so now I know how many words per month I’m likely to write when I’m not pushing…
-
Staying Focused with the Flora App
The Flora app was one of my favorite productivity tools before the pandemic. After a year of use, it’s now my favorite tool to help me track my time and stay focused in other ways, too. And now I’m using it to help me navigate the increasingly foggier days in self-isolation. I started using the Flora app back when I was still in college. I was looking for a free alternative to the super popular Forest app, and Flora drew my eye with its focus on flowers over trees. Not to mention that it had the same functionality, more or less, and it had overall positive reviews on the app…
