Writing is hard work. That probably won’t surprise anyone reading this blog post, but it constantly surprises me. Take my current novel project: I started the first draft of it back in 2013. It was my NaNoWriMo project that year, and while I had a pretty strong idea of what the book would be, IContinue reading “#AmWriting — off the screen, onto the page”
Category Archives: novel
Some observations as I enter my final week of NaNoWriMo 2016
When I began the first version of this novel a few years ago, I thought it was about one man, a character I named Sergeant Tom Cleaver. My mother-in-law had sent me a book of obscure Texas histories and real-life wild characters, and I read about one crazed man so violent and so charismatic thatContinue reading “Some observations as I enter my final week of NaNoWriMo 2016”
NaNoWriMo 2016: starting over
People have been asking me on social media if I’m participating in NaNoWriMo this year. Friends, former students, readers who liked my first NaNoWriMo attempt (Hagridden) — I even got a Facebook event invitation from NaNoWriMo executive director Grant Faulkner. I’ve told them all the same thing: of course I’m participating! Except, as I’ve done aContinue reading “NaNoWriMo 2016: starting over”
Your 2015 holiday shopping list: books, books, and books!
It’s been a great year for books, y’all. And now that the crunch is on for gift-giving season, I wanted to share some books published in the past year by friends of mine! There is a LOT to love here — poetry, prose, anthologies, even a few adult coloring books! So I’ve included some blurbsContinue reading “Your 2015 holiday shopping list: books, books, and books!”
NaNoWriMo 2015: the end is the beginning
Well, I have crossed the finish line and then some. As of today, my word count stands a little more than 57,500. Of course, as I said in my previous NaNoWriMo post, a lot of those words I’ll wind up throwing out, and I also know a lot of those words might stay but become drasticallyContinue reading “NaNoWriMo 2015: the end is the beginning”
NaNoWriMo 2015: revising without revising
It’s been a while since I’ve posted updates on my NaNoWriMo. That’s because it’s been a busy month, with a lot of side obligations I’ve been fulfilling. I judged a literary contest, I blurbed a friend’s book, I did a couple of readings, I wrote an essay a magazine solicited. It’s also been a busy month of myContinue reading “NaNoWriMo 2015: revising without revising”
When to break a chapter
Yesterday morning, over on my Facebook page, I got an interesting question from my first, longest-time fan (hi, Mom!). I’d been commenting on Facebook the past few days about the progress I’ve been making on my new novel and, in the space of two posts and a comment, I had declared that I’d finished a chapter after addingContinue reading “When to break a chapter”
Samuel Snoek-Brown 