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Personal rants and other things

So I just posted on the other website, sort of updating on what’s going on over there, but that doesn’t say anything about what is going on over here! A while back, I met with some of my writing buddies, and we came up with the idea of making a community website in order to have it be a lot more active than a blog kept by a single person. The Literati Society was born from that. That doesn’t mean, however, that I’m never posting here again. In fact, it just means everything I post there comes here. But…there will be some exclusive things here. For example, there’s three short stories on this website, which you can check out HERE! Those are not going anywhere. In fact, I am planning on updating the fiction here first, and then posting on the other place after. So, fiction comes here first…but the […]

September 29, 2016

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In the past couple of days I’ve written some posts on writing, but I haven’t really mentioned who I am or what this blog is for. So, I’m going to take a quick moment to give my take on what’s going… Source: A bird’s introduction
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Source: Not Writing Advice – A Writer’s Advice on Writing I guess I should get this out of the way first since this is the first post in the series…What the hell is this series? – A while back, I sat in a writing class and tried to take in as much knowledge as I could. After the class, I’d pop up my phone and load up the newest episodes in writing podcasts. I’d listen to that as I drove back home, and then I’d read more on my computer once I got there. I felt like Jake Gyllenhaal’s character in the movie Nightcrawler. Yeah. I had issues. Anyway. The point is, I went through way too much advice on writing, and read over many different techniques. And as I did, I started noticing one thing. So much advice contradicts other advice or even itself. On top of that, every […]

Not Writing Advice – A Writer’s Advice on Writing

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For my last big writing projects I’ve been using a software called Scrivener (which you can get here) and it’s proven to be extremely useful to me. Now, I know this will sound like an ad, but I swear I’m not getting paid for it (although I wouldn’t be opposed to it). I doubt I have the out reach to warrant ad payment for this. But I digress. Turns out this little software is crazy useful when writing projects that are long and have multiple scenes. In fact, I don’t think I could ever go back to just a word document and hoping to come up with something. It’s just awesome as it has everything from organization features and other little writing tools that make it much easier to write, outline, draft, and even revise. More importantly though, I feel it has been a game changer for my writing. I […]

Scrivener and Writing

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I couldn’t actually come up with a title for this one, but it’s all because of this: I guess I’m graduating… A few days ago, both of my readers signed off my thesis. I’ve been in a very strange mood ever since. Part disbelief, part relief, and part catatonic bliss, this feeling is hard to put into words beyond: I just finished an MFA in Fiction… I know it doesn’t sound like much, but it’s insane to me. Going back a whole decade ago, teenager me did not even think he was good enough for college (and I still don’t think I’m good enough, so I don’t know how I made it through). When I got into college and got to participate in a creative writing class, I couldn’t believe it. It was amazing. Somehow being there gave writing a sort of legitimacy. I wasn’t just some dude mashing keys on his laptop […]

June 9, 2016

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On Friday, I posted a little reading I performed on my school’s radio…and I must admit, hearing it again…ah. I can hear all of the mistakes! Reading is hard for me. I really don’t know why. I actually have a drama background. I’ve acted in, written, and directed plays. Yet, every time I read anything I’ve written, I freeze. There’s something about reading your own creative work or performing it that I find extremely nerve wrecking. I’m sure the nervousness can be heard in the recording. I sure can hear it myself. Funny enough, I would normally say that maybe it’s the fear of messing up that makes me shake, but I don’t think it is. I actually mess up royally at the end (you can compare the story I have on HERE with the reading HERE). However, I doubt you’d notice unless you were reading along. At least, people […]

Readings and the Week’s Overview

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When I set out at the beginning of the month, I chose the 50k word goal because I knew I had about that much to “re-write” for my novel’s revision (and because it was a nice comfortable number I knew I could hit in one month); but sadly, that goal doesn’t actually cover the entire revision. I still need somewhere around 40k words more to go over and make sure they work within the confines of this new draft. So where does that put me? Well, I actually hit the 50k word goal at some point in the last week, but it seemed that wasn’t enough to cover all the re-writes necessary to “complete” the draft. This is when I get very specific about the novel… So, at the beginning, I crafted a plot map of about 22 chapters (give or take one for further development if I were to need […]

NaNoWriMo’s End & Revision Going Forward

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I know I haven’t been as active as with other nanowrimo/camp nanowrimo events in the past. It’s been sort of…a tough last couple of weeks. I hate to use something like that as an excuse, but it really has been. But, there’s good news besides that! Let’s talk about this week and give a little update on this current nanowrimo 😀 I’m actually very happy that I’ve restarted this website in this more “talky” way. I’m treating it more like a normal blog than some crazy “I’ll upload fiction everyday” challenge. I’ve realized that when I do challenges like that, they start to feel like a shore, and that really messes me up as a writer. And after a few “revelatory” moments in the last couple of weeks, I’ve really come to understand I need to remember how it feels to enjoy this side job of mine. And this week […]

The Week in Review: On Revision and Camp NaNoWriMo

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