Last weekend, I participated in a workshop by Patrick Gale and Suchen Christine Lim.

Both of them were quite adamant about the use of pen and paper. Pen and paper, they said, would not let you edit as you draft, which is very important for first drafts.

Also, it slows down your thinking and writing, which, apparently, is a good thing. They even said something about writing by hand being an organic process as opposed to typing, closer to our hands and hearts.

This brought to mind my writing teacher and friend, who does not allow laptops in her creative writing classes for beginners. An year ago, I could not imagine putting pen to paper, it seemed an alien skill after years of typing.

But when I started off, I realised that with pen and paper I could access the creative side of my brain much easier. Thus far I had typed out all my articles, official letters, reports and so on. So, for me, the pen and paper became the starting point for all my first drafts, after which I typed them on to a document.

While typing I started editing automatically, my first draft virtually became my second draft. I printed this out, and started scribbling on it, adding in and deleting parts, then typing them in again.

This has become my de-facto drafting process for all my short stories. I have not managed a novel yet, so I don’t know what drafting an entire novel by hand would be like. As others have said, it could have its disadvantages.

Patrick Gale does all his first drafts in long hand on notebooks. As writers we have all have different processes, and I’m curious to know how other writers create their drafts. So how do you draft your work?

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I gave up Twitter and Facebook for Lent.

*taking a deep breath and wiping sweat from my brow*

When I told my husband he had an interesting reaction. He said, “Aren’t you just going to be hurting your platform by doing that instead of helping?”

To which I said, “I don’t think so. I’ll still be blogging.”

Bu then I sat back and thought about all the tweeting I do with agents and other authors and began to wonder, am I hurting myself more than helping?

Well regardless the choice has been made and I intend to stick with it.

Do you think taking a break from social networking would hinder your career as a writer? Would you be able to give it up for a full 40 days and 40 nights?

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Marybeth is an aspiring novelist currently working on her second novel. For more information visit her website www.marybethsmith.com. She also has a blog Desperately Searching for my Inner Mary Poppins where you can keep up on her moments as mother, wife and writer..

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Picture found at www.zorpia.com/rodytvxxx

What is Love?

“Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being “in love” which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two.”
-St. Augustine (from the movie Captain Corelli’s Mandolin)

This is the month of love. It’s sometimes simple, sometimes so complicated, it leaves broken hearts and tears.

What made your character fall in love? Were there many things, or was it simple?

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Sarah is writer looking for an agent. She is currently working on novel # 4, editing novels 2 and 3, and querying novel # 1. For more insight to her work, visit: http://legendoftheprotectors.wordpress.com/ or http://legendoftheprotectors.blogspot.com/

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Sunday is Valentine’s Day, and we want your love. Share with us your best love scene, or how you met your sweetheart.

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Sarah is writer looking for an agent. She is currently working on novel # 4, editing novels 2 and 3, and querying novel # 1. For more insight to her work, visit: http://legendoftheprotectors.wordpress.com/ or http://legendoftheprotectors.blogspot.com/

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I’d like to thank Cher Green at Tarot Guidance for presenting us with this award. We hope to bring a little Sunshine to others. We’d also like to share this award with those who bring Sunshine to us. Here are those we’ve extended this award to as well.
Michael Broadway – Cornell DeVille

Elana Johnson – Navigating the Publishing World with a Splash of Real Life

Querytracker

Steena Holmes – Chocolate Reality

Dawn Braun – Life’s Little Pages

Christine Fonseca – Opening the Door to New Worlds

Roni Griffin – Fiction Groupie

Jaleta Clegg – The Far Edge of Normal

Liza Carens Salerno – Middle Passages

K. M. Weiland – Wordplay: Helping Writers Become Authors

Allison Pang – Borrowing Heaven, Subletting Hell

Stephen Tremp – VBT – Writers On The Move

Rules to Accept the Award:

◦Put the logo on your blog in your post.
◦Pass the award onto 12 bloggers.
◦Link the nominees within your post.
◦Let the nominees know they have received this award by commenting on their blogs.
◦Share the love and link to the person from whom you received this award.

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1. Useful links to terrific articles and pointers from agents etc.

2. An Agent’s Wish List

3. Fab Writing Tips

4. Checkpoints when writing scenes

5. Brainstorming Techniques

Some of the links contain links to more useful writer’s resources.

Happy Reading, Girls!

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I have done a few dialog-writing exercises, but the results are often dead, stilted.

But today I read some interesting bits about real-life conversation in a curious book called the 3 am Epiphany, which I’ve borrowed from a friend. They sort of made me realize that dialog does not have to be always clean, cut-and-dried, but can imitate life in various ways, all the while doing what I ask of it: advancing the plot and revealing character.

Without further ado, here are the pages I’m referring to:

3 am Epiphany on Conversations

Conversation examples

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