Okay #WritingCommunity, I'm going to tell you a story and then we're going to talk about Novel In A Year.

This is the story of how suspenders, puddles, and bad writing advice got me to today where I am SUPER excited about helping you finish and publish your book. We're gonna start with me as a little boy in very white, very affluent NJ. I was a small sick little kid with a ton of health issues, so going outside was always dicey. My mom worried a lot. I remember being told to avoid puddles.

For this morning's THREAD, I present a challenge.

By the time this thread is over, you'll have a Twitter-sized pitch for whatever you're writing. And it'll be a good one.

Let's go #writers living a #writerslife as a member of the #WritingCommunity who are #amwriting A pitch is a sharp singular presentation with one goal: to make the person receiving the pitch want more information.

It's not a summary.
It's not a ramble.

It's the start of a conversation that will lead to questions and reading and more talking.

THREAD: How can I create a better pitch while not also killing myself mentally, aka Pitching is tough, please help.

#ontheporch #writerscommunity #writerslife #amquerying #amwriting #writetip #iamaneditor #thisishowitworks I think the first thing we have to cover today is that not everything you want to say about your story is going to fit or belongs in your pitch. Many things you think are critical to "understand" the story don't have to come into the pitch.

THREAD: The line of character and arc and theme. Or: How do I make this character matter in this world I've created? #WritingCommunity #writerscommunity #ontheporch #amwriting #amediting #writercommunity #manycommunities Let's start with some definitions.

"Character" - your main character, but could also be a secondary one.
"Arc" - the journey the character takes - emotional, physical, mental ... going from a starting state to a changed state at story's end
Theme - the takeaway for the reader

I thought today we'd have a nice chat about outlines today.

Are they the enemy? Are you making them the enemy? What do they do? What good are they? Why is this the hill people want to die on?

#ontheporch #amwriting #amrevising #writerlife #amwritingromance #amwritingfantasy For reasons I never learned in school and have only barely begun to learn in life as a professional, people absolutely love labels for their work, and the work of others. It gives them something to debate, it gives them something to cling to or hide from.

I think this morning's thread is a pretty good one. It's one of my favorite "it's important but boy oh boy do people freak out about it" topics.

This morning, I want to talk about "characterization"

#amwriting #ontheporch #amquerying #amrevising #writerslife CHARACTERIZATION is a big word that carries a lot of weight conceptually, but often gets blown out of proportion when the panic starts.

What is it?

It's making a character feel like a person. Like you could relate to them or find them out in your world pretty easily.

I was up early this morning (thanks chest pain), and it got me thinking.

So today's thread is about pursuing your dreams. I cannot stress this loud enough, I could not possibly say this often enough, but if you have something you want to do, some thing you want to make, some person you want to talk to, some goal you want to achieve - go do it.

No, it's not easy. But that doesn't mean don't do it.

In this morning's thread ...

Not so much a thread as it is a pile of stuff that doesn't fit anywhere else.

So I present to you: ASSORTED THOUGHTS, vol. 6. PUTTING DESCRIPTION ON THE PAGE ONLY SACRIFICES PACING IF THE LEVEL OF DETAIL OUTWEIGHS THE UTILITY OF WHY YOU'RE DESCRIBING THINGS.

Describe something because it matters. Because knowing something new about a thing matters. Stop fearing that it takes time to do so.