Category Archives: Readerly on Writing

I am a big fan of The Great British Bake Off.  As a baker, I love watching the creativity, the beauty, the sheer miraculousness of what the bakers on that show pull off week after week.  I also happen to love cake.  I have written before how writing is like baking (see here), but asContinue reading “The Layer Cake Method of Drafting a Novel”

Are you wondering whether you are ready to query your novel?  You may be!  It’s always a good idea to take a hard look at your one sentence pitch and your first 5-20 pages before you hit send.  Sometimes, in our excitement, we query too early. When I was thinking about how to illustrate whatContinue reading “Is it possible you’ve queried too soon?”

Writing a novel is hard.  If you’ve been writing for a while, you know this, it is not news.  But sometimes we scare ourselves out of doing hard things, because we think of stress as only a bad thing.  You are not alone; our culture embraced the idea that all stress is bad stress aContinue reading “Mindset Shift: Is it a Cold Dark Night on the Side of Everest for you as a writer?”

Do you dream of joining in with others during NaNoWriMo, but run out of gas about half way through? Do you have an idea for a novel, but you are not sure how to get started and make real progress? Do you struggle with finding time to write, because you have a busy schedule andContinue reading “Save the Date:  October 21-23 for the First Annual Readerly NaNoPlanMo Virtual Writing Retreat”

Readers of the Readerly Tea Break will know that my husband and I recently came to Estonia with the intention of staying long term.  One of the decisions we made was to economize by only bringing two checked bags each—at the last minute through the kind offices of a friend group, we were gifted anContinue reading “Is your luggage too full? What about your novel?”

There is no shortage of writing advice in the world.  Use an outline, don’t use an outline.  Write every day.  Write when you can. Write for the market. Write the book of your heart. On and on it goes. One thing is  true.  You can’t revise and query or indie publish a novel if youContinue reading “Writing Retreats: Give Yourself the Gift of Time”

In thinking about topics for revision, my thoughts went to baking.  Stay with me, I promise we’ll get there. My husband and I used to own a Bed and Breakfast in a Historic House in the Texas Hill Country, and it was so much fun!  One of my favorite things about it was that IContinue reading “Using an Outline to Revise: How Writing is Like Baking”

Have you noticed that there are LOADS of ways to make an outline for your novel?  There’s Save the Cat, the Story Grid, The Hero’s Journey, The Heroine’s Journey, Romancing the Beat, and the beat goes on.  It seems that everyone who has ever written a book has their own method, and they are quickContinue reading “Outlines and how to make one…”