Episode 31: Thunderclap of Awkward
Writing is a messy process, and it shows in this episode, where I have to face the fact that sometimes you throw away words that you love. I also seek to embrace my inner-middle-schooler by remembering my own experience and forcing my friends and family to remember theirs! After all, writers often steal from real life!
IN THIS EPISODE
I make the world’s worst ninja.
The challenges of writing when your schedule is off and you are supposed to be on a weekend “away,” but your story is nagging at you.
When all the kids go off to school, how much time do you really have? It’s easy to squander your time if you aren’t careful. I attempt to time-block to counteract my tendency to nickel and dime my time.
Jennie is a huge fan of using an actual kitchen timer when trying to build a writing habit. She uses an actual hourglass!
In my book, I keep my surface level details, while changing gears in the driving force behind my story. I discovered that the reason why I couldn’t connect the beginning and end of my story was because I was solving a different problem at the end than I presented at the beginning of the book.
Don’t build a world that doesn’t make sense for your story.
Sometimes you have to give up world-building details that you love in order for your story to make sense.
I used the idea behind the Parent Trap movie and the tropes in my genre to pull it all together—the wicked step mother and the wicked step sister. I think it would be fun if my main character had to choose between having the wicked step-mother OR having the wicked step-sister.
When writing about middle school, you have to lean into all the awkward moments and memories of things that happen. I surveyed people asking for their worst memories of middle school for inspiration! And we include them. Including an EPIC Melanie Parish Middle School Moment as a bonus at the end!!
Real writers do this thing called “throwing stuff out”—words are cheap, just get rid of them.
