Today I want to talk about whether or not a creative writing degree is worth it. In short, yes, yes it is. The thing to keep in mind though, is that the degree itself, the piece of paper you get at the end, has no bearing on whether or not you get that novel published…
Today I want to talk about how hard it can be to put yourself out there and share your work. Part of the issue, for me at least, is vulnerability. My writing, while fictional, is always going to reflective of me in some way. Sharing it, and accepting critique and interpretation, makes me vulnerable. I’m…
I finished editing my first draft over the weekend, but it didn’t feel like much of an achievement. I initially wrote the novel, and started this blog, because I wanted to take writing much more seriously. This first edit is one step on a very long journey. With that being said, as I move onto…
Let’s talk about getting to that second draft. For me, the hardest part of editing the first draft has been reworking the plot. The plot in my novel is quite complex, though it can be broadly split into three main sections, which I’ve been able to map out quite well (see Aristotle’s plot structure for…
Yeah, so, the last few weeks have sucked. I haven’t done anything on my digital poetry project. I’ve only edited one chapter of my novel. I have written four poems, but the one I’m most happy with isn’t publishable (I wrote it while I was upset with someone, which is a shame, because it’s a…
I finally got around to rewriting the opening chapters of my novel, and it’s taken me a very long time. I did no research before writing the first draft and, as a result, I made a lot of assumptions that needed to be changed. Natasha Lester, a writer of historical fiction, explains that she does…
When it comes to editing a novel, Stephen King suggests leaving your first draft to rest. “How long you let your book rest” (2010, p. 211) he says “–sort of like dough between kneadings–is entirely up to you, but I think it should be a minimum of six weeks” (2010, p. 211). I left mine for…