The month between Thanksgiving and Christmas is stressful even in the best of times. You’ve got to buy your presents, wrap them, make sure they get to the right recipient (and that’s assuming you aren’t making any). There’s Christmas Cards
Stories as Presents
The holidays are fast approaching, and it’s the time of year where you start to panic because you can’t seem to think of what your little brother might want, or what to get your friend who has everything (it turns
What Do I Do Now That Nano’s Over? (And an Update on my Personal Challenge)
It’s the 30th! Time’s up! How’d you do? Well, 50K or not, you now, no doubt, find yourselves with at least part of a novel. Some of it may actually be usable. But what do you do with yourself now that
Nanowrimo: Week Four Tips
Well, my fellow Wrimos, Nano ends next Wednesday. You should be somewhere around 36K to be on track. I can’t say this enough, but DON’T PANIC. If you’re behind, you still have time. A lot of Americans use Thanksgiving weekend
Nanowrimo: Week Three Tips
Oh, November, I feel like you are messing with us. How can it possibly be week three already? Is it really Thanksgiving in a week? I am doomed. But anyway. Week Three. At this point, everyone is, in theory, halfway
Nanowrimo: Week Two Tips
Well, Squiders, we’re about a third of the way through November. How goes your word counts? How goes your motivation? Week Two tends to be a bad week. Your enthusiasm has waned, you start to hit points in your story
My Nanowrimo Challenge
I’ve been swept up in this November insanity for a long time now. This is my ninth year participating. When I first started, I was a junior in college, double majoring in two different engineering degrees, and I would fit
Nanowrimo: Week One Tips
Well, friends, November is upon us. All that planning you did (or didn’t) do during October, all the excitement and the anticipation…and now it’s time to go. Don’t get bogged down in the beginning. We’ve talked about beginnings here in
The Social Aspect of Nanowrimo
Writing, as so many books and other sources like to tell us, is a solitary activity. We think of the “great” writers, holed up in their studies, never seen for days at a time, chain-smoking and drinking their absinthe and
Editing: Breaking Everything Down
I’ve been taking an editing class, not necessarily because I feel like I don’t know how to edit, but that I am ridiculously inefficient at it and can probably use all the help I can get. This class’s point is



