NaNoWriMo: The End is Just the Beginning | arielkprice

It’s December 1st. Which means that my first NaNoWriMo is over. It’s been an interesting experience.

First of all, my final word count is 15,689. Not nearly the 50,000 it’s supposed to be, but it beats my own personal record by about 14,000 words, so I consider it a HUGE success!

Excerpted from NaNoWriMo: The End is Just the Beginning « arielkprice.

Ways to Develop Your Unique Writing Voice | Kristen Lamb’s Blog

Ah, November. National Novel Writing Month. I can almost smell the fresh office supplies, the hint of double espresso and sugar drifting on the wind. The beginning of November is full of hope, promise and inspiration, but by week two?

….yeah.

I have been running a series on structure and sure structure has the obvious benefit of having a coherent plot/story at the end. But, there is another benefit to plotting that we often don’t think about. Voice.

Plotting ahead of time gives a newer writer an advantage that most people don’t think about. It gives us a playpen to contain our baby writing “voice.” Voice is one of those aspects of writing that is tough to define and quantify. Yet, it is at the heart of who we are as writers. The more we write, the more mature our writing voice becomes. Leave an immature, unformed voice to wander off on its own, and it will be wandering around getting into everything and making a mess.

Excerpted from Ways to Develop Your Unique Writing Voice | Kristen Lamb’s Blog.