words and images by mk swanson
 
Category: <span>process</span>

Wax On, Wax Off

Practice. My friends on ProzactoPrana and Slippers have been talking about it, and I promised to do it this month. 50,000 words in 30 days during NaNoWriMo may not produce a finished novel, but it is certainly good practice. Where am I? Embarrassingly far behind. To save face, I’ll say …

Learning to Pitch

I am at my Mom and Dad’s house for Halloween this weekend. I brought the page of summaries I wrote for FWA just in case I found the occasion to show it to my family. Late in the evening, sitting with my sister Sarah and my niece Kristin, both big …

Networking for Introverts

Last Saturday, October 23, I attended the Florida Writers Association (FWA) yearly conference. I was nervous, because meeting one new person a week is my preferred networking speed. Nothing was a bad as I imagined, barring the workshops delivered via powerpoint presentation and the hours-long awards ceremony (which was probably dull …

Prepping for NaNoWriMo

Today I took the day off, planning to spend it setting up character sheets and an outline for my NaNoWriMo novel. Instead, I spent the day getting age spots lasered off (and thereafter contemplating my bad decision-making), watching a movie, reading a book on biocentricism, and, of course, napping. Finally finding …

NaNoWriMo is Nigh

 A Clip of NaNoWriMo’s Banner  Last year, I participated in my first NaNoWriMo, which stands for National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to write 50,000 words of a new novel in the 30 days of November. I loved it. I wrote “Ephemeral,” a novel I consider to …

Fallow Through

I heard a story on TED today about how if you want to achieve a goal, you shouldn’t tell people. This runs counter to everything I’ve ever heard, but apparently the science is in on this one. What happens is, your brain is satisfied with the warm fuzzies you get …