With another year gone by, it's time to take stocks, summarize what've learned in regards to my writing, and, hopefully, figure out how to push forward. As always, it was a year with ups and downs. I landed my first publication at a professionally paying magazine, Grievous Angel Magazine (which sadly closed down later in … Continue reading 2018 – My Year as a Writer
Category: Writing skills
Writing a Novel – 7 Tips on How to Create Character Emotion
I just stumbled across this excellent post on how to make sure you have strong, realistic character emotions in your writing that your readers can connect to. I hope you'll enjoy as much as I did
Perfect Practice
Keeping in line with my earlier post about Deliberate Practice, I found this cool little TEDx talk (see below) about how a high level pianist practices. It illustrates nicely how it's not just the amount of time you spend practicing that counts but also how you practice. Worst case, you could be practicing bad habits, … Continue reading Perfect Practice
Deliberate Practice In Detail
I've been rambling a bit about deliberate practice and how I try to apply to my writing. So I think it's time I go into a little more detail about what exactly deliberate practice is. Unlike play, deliberate practice isn't inherently enjoyable. There's no instant gratification. So you got to have the discipline to sit … Continue reading Deliberate Practice In Detail
Deliberate Practice and the Dan Plan – part 2
Last time I promised a look at how apply deliberate practice to writing fiction, and bit more details about why the Dan Plan failed. So here goes. The often repeated writing advice out there is probably Write a lot. But if you listen to pro writers such as Brandon Sanderson, Mary Robinette Kowal, or Dean … Continue reading Deliberate Practice and the Dan Plan – part 2
Deliberate Practice and the Dan Plan – part 1
I've mentioned briefly in previous blog posts how important I think it is to practice the right way if you want to excel at your craft. And that was actually my primary reason for starting this blog. I wanted to use it as a way of documenting my own progress and set-backs and to show … Continue reading Deliberate Practice and the Dan Plan – part 1
Practice, Practice, Practice (With Purpose)
The last post was all about how I and most other writers, start out on what many of us hope will one day become a career. This one is about those first stumbling steps we take in our effort to improve our writing, specifically about how I did it and what I do differently now … Continue reading Practice, Practice, Practice (With Purpose)
Toby Backman 