B. Jeanne Boyko » Writing Courses

Victory!

B. Jeanne Boyko — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 20:08:47 +0000

How To Revise Your Novel has required a lot of work, a lot of time and a LOT of worksheets, but Lesson Seven (which ended up using more paper than my novel did) took the cake. And..it was worth it.

Here at last l acquired a vocabulary to define not one but several missing elements that before I had no way to express, AND saw the means of changing these things, so my story can indeed become the novel that I wanted. "Grateful" is just the tip of the iceberg. "Empowered" "inspired" and "determined" are in there too.

It's hard to imagine a more significant lesson, but it is after all only Lesson 7 of 21, so it's safe to assume there will be more value to follow. Knowing the problem is the first step, knowing how to solve it is probably number two, but actually doing the work of fixing it is still to come. There's still a lot of work ahead of me, but I can see the prize more clearly now.

Thank you, thank you, Holly.

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Work before work

B. Jeanne Boyko — Mon, 31 May 2010 20:03:33 +0000

Today I did significant work on Shurley English and completed Lesson Four in HTRYN.

The English is very work-intensive, although it’s exciting to be filling gaps in my basic education. I’m not sure I should be pouring my limited brain-cells into that first thing on a Monday though, before getting to HTRYN. We’ll try doing it the other way around tomorrow.

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Today’s Efforts

B. Jeanne Boyko — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 20:13:56 +0000

Today I spent much of the morning in writing related activities. In my Scenes course, I wrote about an External Conflict and two characters, one on either side of the conflict. Then I wrote some scene ideas for a WIP for an exercise in Storytelling. I spent time reading ahead in the course as well, and also Holly Lisle's Plotting Under Pressure webpage. It sounds like a lot of fun to do cold.

I am suspecting that I really need to get a grip on my Nanowrimo project. I have all the plotting cards from six months ago, which is great, but need to refresh all the awesome character and worldbuilding work I did before so it's fresh for when writing really begins. As I continue to set up my office today I intend to gather these notes and have them readily accessible. Onward!

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Writing Diary

B. Jeanne Boyko — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 23:12:23 +0000

Working on Holly Lisle's How to Write Page-Turning Scenes. Really impressed by what the exercises are bringing out of me particularly the ones on Indirect Conflict and Internal Conflict. Internal Conflict had to be written without Internal Dialogue, so that was a stretch and I learned a lot. It's exciting to be learning things that are actually improving my craft!

Today's exercise was writing a scene on Interpersonal Conflict, without having a verbal fight. Cool. Conflict is change, it doesn't have to be antagonistic.

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This is B. Jeanne Boyko’s writing diary Any writer seeking to improve her craft can’t go amiss by adding a little accountability...