NaNoWriMo

What is story structure, how does it rule our writing lives, and how can we harness its power for good? — Story makes up our lives, from the way we communicate with each other to the entertainment we constantly consume. It is present in every moment of every day as our minds construct stories to explain what we’re seeing. …

Sometimes writing is realizing what writing needs deleted — Recently, I talked about how I hadn’t touched my NaNo novel in five months. This week, I re-read what I’d written so far and I realized two things: It’s really not all that bad. I jumped the shark with a subplot that didn’t fit at all. No wonder the second…

If you haven’t noticed by now from reading some of my previous articles, I love employing dice into the creative process; probably because I’ve always been a tabletop gamer at heart (Dungeons & Dragons is stating the glaring obvious, I grew up playing beloved HeroQuest that will always hold a…

After vacillating over what exactly I was going to do for the April NaNoWriMo Camp I stayed with revising and editing ‘Belling The Cat’ which forms the first part of the novella and once that was done I carried on with editing ‘BYRD’ which carries on the tale 70 years…

National Novel Writing Month is officially in November, but in April and July there are more casual off-shoots called Camp Nanowrimo. These Camp (and sometimes campy) events are more casual, because you can choose your own word count (instead of sticking to the 50,000-word minimum), and you can work on…

After struggling to stay awake for much of March and April and then lacking in motivation to do anything when I was awake I’ve finally broken through to something like the joy and intensity that was mine when I was writing during the 1990s and early 2000s. Part of the…

Trigger warnings: violence, imprisonment, sexual abuse. Rat Patois and alien languages warning. ‘Byrd’ Chapter Two. Captive. © Anne Welborn 1997. 2023. The Crimson Desert, the Highlands of Adronas. The Bodii slaver’s ship bore no markings of recognition, only Byrd knew it for a Bodii vessel as soon as she held…

Personal Reflections on Mental Health A few weeks into April’s Camp NaNo, and I am finally starting to gain some insight into my writing problems. …

The 1990s were a time of cathartic awakening for me. My marriage from hell was over and in the aftermath I felt like I’d been forged and hammered and then finally quenched with my own tears. The path ahead of me was uncertain and unknown, but the one thing I…