It’s May 16th, 2012, which is my official date of graduation, so: I now have an MFA in creative writing from New York University, with a concentration in fiction. What does that mean? Well, not a whole lot. It means I gave myself the gift of two years of very focused time. I spent two
The most common advice I hear from successful authors is that you need to write every day. This is one of those pieces of wisdom that I used to always shove into the same category as the annoying things my mother nagged me about whenever I called her. “Did you take your vitamins?” Or “Don’t
Here is why I now recommend NaNoWriMo to all writers of all levels: It forces you to move forward. When you hit any kind of block, you don’t have the time to sit and agonize over it. You have to just push through or skip ahead. I discovered that often when I just left gaps
Ernest Hemingway said: “The first draft of anything is shit.” This is the reason I decided to do NaNoWriMo this year. Because I’m trying to finish the first draft of my novel, which will also be my MFA thesis. I started writing this novel in June, and between June and October I wrote four different
My best friend came over this weekend so that we could do an intensive write-in together. We’re both working on NaNoWriMo projects, so it was a great way to keep each other on track. When you’re working alone it can be easy to take breaks too often, to reward yourself sooner than you should, or
As I’m typing this it’s late at night on Day 13 of NaNoWriMo. I’m past 30,000 words now, but it certainly wasn’t easy getting here. NaNoWriMo is a marathon. Sometimes you need to slow down and walk. But that doesn’t mean you won’t make it. The first 1000 words of each day are the hardest
Apologies for the lack of posts! I spent the second half of last week out in California shooting a wedding. Then I returned to New York very sick and have been quarantined in my apartment ever since, trying my hardest to battle fevers and mucus-churning coughs while also staying on top of NaNoWriMo. Speaking of
Nothing terrifies me more than the idea of writing into the darkness, heading for uncharted lands. I find that I have a lot of trouble writing even the first paragraph of the first chapter of something if I don’t have at least a basic outline. I am always extremely fascinated by the processes that other
