I Should Be Writing

Last day on Role Playing a writer's life. 

By popular demand we bring you Jennifer Udden, my former agent, current friend, and freelance editor! We attempt more LARPing but overall just chat.  NOTE, my producer usually cuts out the interaction with the live chat to make for a smoother experience for you, but with two hosts that made it harder so I decided to  just leave most of it as-is. 

Confidence is one of those weird emotions you can fake until you make it. So if we're pretending to be a confident writer, what else can we pretend to be? We begin the Save the Cat! beat sheet as a LARP and it gets interesting.

What happens when you start making money with writing? We're talking advances, accountants, the sought for "six figure deal" and more. You may not be making money now, but you probably intend to. So let's talk about what people usually don't talk about. Note- I am not an accountant.

Everyone knows the way to write a book, or get in shape, is to do the thing (writing, exercising, abstaining from junk food, etc) every day, and boom, you're done. So why is it so freaking hard?

I've been working on my protagonist's flaws, and realizing that the story is a lot easier to write when your character may have flawed reasons driving them.

We're all imposters, no matter what you think. Trust me. All of us.

We're all imposters, no matter what you think. Trust me. All of us. Latest Twitch stream times (EDT): Monday, 12:30, AMA/Hangout Tuesday, 3:00, I Should Be Writing Live Wednesday, 4:00, Gaming Thursday 12:30, I Should Be Writing Live Links: Catch the next LIVE show on Twitch Behind the name

I'm a HUGO FINALIST! Escape Pod is up for Best Semiprozine, and SB Divya and I got nominated for Best Editor (Short form)! See all the nominees here!

It's easy to slip into stereotypes when you  are writing someone different from yourself. I have some thoughts on how to avoid that.

Aside from bringing the Internet down on your head when you say stuff like horror can't be in space, blanket advice is harmful in other ways, too.

I'm realizing that fear is often connected to the lack of control in a situation. Such as submitting to an editor or publishing a book. You might as well try to control the tides. Also, I'm a NYT Bestseller now! Or part of one, anyway. (I wrote one of the Minecraft novels!)

Practice and expectation of improvement are similar components between writing and running, but there's a big difference.

It's a standard feeling that once you get used to your current WiP and you may have hit a snag here and there, you will get the desire to focus on another, newer, shinier project. This is totally normal, everyone from a newbie to a pro feels this. But the question is, what do you do when you feel like that?

We are supposed to learn from mistakes, so why are we so hard on ourselves when we make them? Donations benefitting the Trevor Project.