Happy New Year!
The holiday bustle is over and it’s time to return to finishing my best seller before conference season begins. My husband, bless his soul, gave me an exceptional gift to improve my writing and storyline. Scrivener is a program designed to help organize plots into manageable sections that can be arranged in quite an array of ways. I’ve heard through a writery grapevine that Gwen Hernandez shares a Scrivener: Intro Tips and Tricks on her website gwenhernandez.com. She has also written “Scrivener for Dummies” for people like me, who aren’t the sharpest spade in the garden shed when it comes to learning new programs.
A new year brings renewed spark, and from experience of resolutions past, I’ve found goals easier to accomplish in small nibbles than attempting to eat the whole cookie at once. December’s holiday party took on a positive tone with this year’s goals. The first, to finish what I’ve started writing by a specific date, had several heads nodding in agreement. Submitting to several different editors and agents was another popular one.
Updating websites, or building a new site, gave all of us something to work toward, and finally, a suggestion that excited me to my roots, to write in a different genre than we’re use to. This all sounds so reasonable, but after too much eggnog and pumpkin pie, finding motivation to add pages to my manuscript takes encouragement. To help get word counts up there is JaNoWrite, similar to NaNo in November, but with one extra day to hit your mark. and lasts through the end of February. janowriters-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. Another terrific was to plow through the winter blues is with the Ruby Slippered Sisterhood’s Winter Writing Festival that begins January 10th and lasts through the end of February. http://www.rubyslipperedsisterhood.com/announcing-the-2014-ruby-slippered-sisterhood-winter-writing-festival/
For those of us who strive to improve our craft, Holly Lisle has online workshops, some are free, athttp://howtothinksideways.com/ I’m very excited about attempting Flash Fiction using some of her helping tips.
And last, but most important, is to have your grammar in tiptop shape. Grammarly has two help sites to whip your sentences into perfect prose with the Free Grammarly handbook http://click.send.grammarly.com/?qs=c522dbda795c07994024fe22e5fea55fdd3c6e6bed11d39d0b2d665b13a20080ac78242edd559b25, and free Grammarly Q&A http://click.send.grammarly.com/?qs=c522dbda795c079992d85ca37e5a6d84ca68d4a48e4bdb45c7409632c2138e89be27e1bc1da37eed
Time for me to sign on for JaNo. Have a busy and writery month
Betty Wryte-Goode
Mixed Up Words of the Month:
Array and Awry
An array is a systematic arrangement of objects, usually in rows and columns.
Awry means "twisted"—so going awry means getting "twisted up." Awry is similar to askew, which means "off, out of line," though when you compare the roots skew "turned at an angle" and wry "twisted" you see the subtle difference between the two words
Betty Wryte-Goode is a writer, mother, and wife who lives in the Lehigh Valley. Her passions include writing, reading, shopping, gardening, and exploring the internet. Betty is always looking for writing tips, so if you have any you would like to share, please send them to her through our Submissions/Contacts page.