Mina Witteman – author | editor | teacher of creative writing

Posts tagged “NaNoWriMo

Write Now! Revise Later!

Posted on June 11, 2013

Writing prompts are an excellent way of keeping the writing juices flowing. It is supposed to be an old writer’s adage that you should write every day. Some advise you to write in the early morning, even before the day has begun, with your eyes still closed just penning down what bubbles up from your subconscious. Others think it’s best to allocate a dedicated time frame to writing and force yourself to scribble down anything, even if it’s a shopping list, as long as you keep your hand moving. Both methods and numerous others have their merits, but require at least some form of self-discipline, a trait that we writers seem to lack every now and again, be it because we lure ourselves into the…

Time To Say No

Posted on November 19, 2012

A big chunk of my writer friends ‘do’ NaNoWriMo again this year, National Novel Writing Month. I suspect most people are familiar with the concept: write a novel of at least 50,000 words in one month, starting November 1 and ending November 30. Some of my friends breeze through this year’s NaNoWriMo, others struggle with every word. Me? I’m skipping NaNoWriMo altogether. Not because I don’t like challenges. I LOVE a good challenge. I LOVE to win, too, and in the run-up to NaNoWriMo, I was filled with eager anticipation. Another chance to push out a novel, another chance to show that I have a writer’s stamina, an artist’s perseverance. While thinking up a plot for my next NaNoWriMo novel, I took a good look at…

A final boost

Posted on November 22, 2010

Where would you go if you needed a boost? Who can give you that final push to get you to the finish line? What works for you? I am in the final stages of the DARK FIBER revision. It’s working out well for Jonathan Kelder and his antagonist Matt Turing, but for me it’s a long and hard journey towards the end and I definitely needed a boost. Amsterdam, of course, provides plenty of boosting opportunities, but being a straight edger most of them are –out of choice, but still :)– beyond my reach. I have plenty of friends, the writing kind and the non-writing kind, that will gladly pull me through. Actually, I even have a whole NaNoWriMo group that cheers me on, these…