http://bonnefriesen.com Bonne Friesen ~ Dances With Words Wed, 23 Apr 2008 20:33:42 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en No, I'm not talking about Santa, I'm talking about the originator of The Snowflake Method of novel design, Randy Ingermanson! Randy is doing a workshop in Couer d'Alene this weekend. One of his other blog readers from my area contacted me, and now three of us will drive down this ... http://bonnefriesen.com/2008/04/23/the-snowflake-guy-is-coming/ I'm getting a lot more out of Techniques of the Selling Writer this time. I'm a good way in, and I'm grasping the MRU thing a lot better. Applying it may a different story entirely, but it's a start. I'm having a lot of fun putting in an extra ... http://bonnefriesen.com/2008/04/16/second-time-around/ So, while I'm in the re-write of Gift of the Ancients, I've had my next novel somewhat on my mind. I plan to do Nanowrimo again this year, and I'd like to have a better fleshed-out Snowflake to work with this time. The story is called Windsinger, and I began ... http://bonnefriesen.com/2008/04/05/50/ In spite of annoying health issues, I did complete the re-write of the first five chapters in my novel Gift of the Ancients. Next week's goal: write and edit the last two chapters of 'book one', also known as, 'the beginning of the story'. I don't know ... http://bonnefriesen.com/2008/04/05/its-the-doing-not-the-having/ So, I've been reading Julia Cameron's book Vein of Gold, about taking your creative life more seriously. I mean, seriously. Apparently it gets into silly, fun ways of unlocking more creativity, but I'm not that far yet. I am undertaking what she calls the "narrative timeline" and ... http://bonnefriesen.com/2008/03/30/the-story-of-me/ On Randy Ingermanson's blog he is critiquing one-sentence summaries from his faithful blog readers. I've been waiting for this, as I'm never sure if I'm doing it right. Here's my entry for my Nano-novel, Gift of the Ancients: "Forbidden friends must reach the ruined Citadel to activate ... http://bonnefriesen.com/2008/03/29/one-sentence-summary/ No, not my novel.  Not even the second draft.  I finished reading Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight Swain.  Another of my writing friends has ordered this book on my recommendation.  I met her in writing class, and the one little tip I shared with her from Swain moved ... http://bonnefriesen.com/2008/03/10/i-finished-it/ I was pleased to notice a poster for a writing seminar at the public library and made a note on my calendar. It was to be on Wednesday evening, which is already full with music lessons and grocery shopping, but I managed to make it in "Kootenay Time", which ... http://bonnefriesen.com/2008/02/28/coffee-with-a-vicki-delaney/ I was referred to Chip Macgregor's blog (Chip is an agent and sometime publisher) for statistics on the most successful books of 2007.  It turns out only 4 books sold over a million copies this year, and 15 more sold between 50 000 and one million.   Total of 19 ... http://bonnefriesen.com/2008/02/27/truth-lies-and-statistics/ It's challenging at this fledgling state of my writing career to move forward, simply because there are so many paths I could be moving forward on. I started this week beginning to go in depth with my main characters, with the help of strategies learned ... http://bonnefriesen.com/2008/02/21/rewriting-yeah-thats-what-im-doing/