I overwrite everything.
For a long time, this has been my way in every form of writing that I do, from emails to work memos, from “short” stories to “short” novels.
Tag Archives: Novel writing
So, You Want to Start a Critique Group
Any Given Sunday in the Middle Ages (Medieval Mondays #9b)
As discussed in the previous post on the medieval Church, church life in the Middle Ages was life.
The services it provided contributed to every key turning point in people’s existence. According to John R.H. Moorman, author of Church Life in the Thirteenth Century,
It gave first, the regular worship of the Church on Sundays and weekdays. It gave also the opportunities of Christian baptism, matrimony and burial, together with a little teaching and some spiritual direction mainly administered in the confessional. Further, it offered to the sick and the dying spiritual comfort and perhaps, in some places, medical help as well. (p. 151)
Thoughts on Reading Through My Novel’s Third Draft
Three drafts of my WIP: first (in the box), second (blue), and third (clear)
In truth, the title to this post should actually be as follows:
“Thoughts on Reading Through My Novel’s Third Draft and Completing My Fourth Draft at More or Less the Same Time”.
Because that is how it went down.
(Church) Life in the Middle Ages (Medieval Mondays #9a)
In the medieval world, the influence of the Church was ubiquitous.
The average modern inhabitant of the western world, even a religious one, might struggle to conceive of how much this was the case.
Thoughts on Having an Excerpt of My Novel Read By a Literary Agent
I’ve always believed that I’m a good writer. But at the same time, I’ve always believed I still have much to learn.
At the intersection of these two opposing ideas is the place where I wonder whether, at this moment, I’m good enough for traditional publication.
Whether my historical fiction WIP, which I’ve believed in long enough to have now gone through three (soon to be four) drafts, is now good enough to at least pique the interest of a publishing professional, let alone snag and hold that interest for the duration.
War and Peace (and War and Peace) in the Middle Ages (Medieval Mondays #8c)
If there’s one aspect of medieval knights that tends to be grossly exaggerated in mainstream media, it’s the amount of time they spent in open warfare.
To begin with, as previously discussed in my post on the feudal system, a “knight’s fee”—that is, the assorted obligations a vassal owed his lord in exchange for the land he lived upon—was both passive and active in nature.
On the Horseshoe Theory of Plotting vs. Pantsing
It’s one of the first questions writers ask each other upon meeting for the first time:
Are you a plotter…
(outliner)
(architect)
…or a pantser
(discovery writer)
(gardener)?
Thoughts on Completing My Novel’s Third Draft
And then there were three: first (green), second (blue), and third (clear) drafts of my WIP
It almost happened too fast for me to have any thoughts on the process at all.
Compared to the marathon of completing the second draft of my historical fiction WIP—which amounted to a complete rewrite of a draft written years ago—there was no way, I told myself, that I’d spend another year on draft three.
Or even the better part of a year
Chivalry Was Already Dying in the Middle Ages (Medieval Mondays #8b)
Few aspects of medieval history capture the imagination quite like the medieval knight.
The chivalric ideal
At the same time, few aspects of 13th century medieval history are as grossly misrepresented in mainstream entertainment as the medieval knight.
My previous post about knights in the Middle Ages touched on how the process of becoming a knight involved training in manners, music, and poetry when a young boy was a page, and sacred vigil and dedication of his sword when a squire was elevated to knighthood.
A Frame Around Infinity 