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Find Buried Treasure In Your Outline

2011-04-15T03:37:36Z

Let’s pull a few skeletons out of the closet right away.

Do you outline your writing?

There is a wealth of writing wisdom out there that says the first step for taking your writing from amateur to pro is to develop the practice of outlining what you write. They say it’s a surefire way to kick your butt and get you thinking about your content the right way because it's your specific treasure map.

I have a high level of skepticism about any "common wisdom" writing advice, but over and over again I read the same thing in interviews from writers who have "made it". In fact, I just read the same thing from Amanda Hocking (self-publishing sweetheart and recently signed St. Martin's Press author- to the tune of $2M!). She spends 3-4 weeks outlining each of her new novels before delving into the actual content writing.

So as much as I'd like to sputter and say it aint' so, I can't deny the simple truth that outlines have secret powers. They can even make you prolific.

Outlines also have something else that makes them valuable. They hide buried treasure. Riches beyond your wildest imagination.

The Devil is in the Details

I'm not going to make you pull out your pirate gear and go in search of my hidden meaning here. The buried treasure that outlines hide is knowledge.

When done correctly, outlines can make you a better, more efficient writer.

There is probably another part of you that is rebelling saying “Well Christy- I’ve heard you say on more than one occasion that you just need to write. Write write write write.”

I still believe that's true. But I can tell you from having written two manuscripts sans outlines that it has made my job of editing ten times more difficult. That’s because I can’t see the forest for the trees. I have to go back and forth between chapters to remember what happened when in the story.

If I had an outline to reference though, this task would be much easier. In fact, that is one of the first things that Chris Baty suggests after NanoWrimo wraps up (and after the much needed time away from your manuscript): go back through the story and outline the important plot details. (I didn't do that because I thought that I could do it without that. You can ask me later how well that's going....)

The Bones of Your Story Emerge

Once we strip away all the fleshy parts, we are left with the bare bones of the story. And this is where our analysis and quest for buried treasure really begins.

Our characters stand naked for us to see (Oops- we lost John Doe somewhere around Chapter 20. Better go back and pick that poor fool up!)
We can see incomplete subplots. (I forgot to close the loop on what happened with So and So and her father.)
We can see story arcs that don’t jive between the beginning and the end. (Eek! She was twenty at the start of the book and suddenly she’s thirty-two years old at the end of a story that only spans 2 weeks.)
We can see where we got lost which is usually somewhere in the middle. (Well- that makes no sense at all! That character would never have gone to that place!)

Outlines keep us from making a mess of things. That is why they are valuable.

Does every piece of writing need an outline?

I would guess that most gurus would say “yes”. They would probably say that even a briefest blog post needs an outline with your opening thoughts, three sub bullets, and closing.

But for me, anything under 1000 words isn’t trying my skills in seeing glaring content gaps.

In those instances, I use my first draft as an outline. But for a behemoth project like a novel, I think that it is well worth the time investment to sketch out the high level details of what you think will happen during the course of the story. That’s not to say that having an outline means everything is written in stone. But it shows you how to get to the end. And it is quite comforting to know where “X” marks the spot. You may sleep a bit easier just knowing how your story is supposed to end.

Just to get some other thoughts on the topic, here are some dead simple resources on drafting outlines:

Your Outline Is Your Friend

Building An Outline

Outline Or Not?

Do you outline? Why or why not?

(photo credit talliskeeton)

What Else Do You Do Besides Write?

2011-04-11T03:25:32Z

If you don’t like writing, the question of what you do besides writing is an easy one. You are probably offering to do the dishes, go grocery shopping, get the oil changed in the car, do yard work, or any other task that will keep you away from the writing chair.

But if you are a writer by trade, the question may become more difficult. You are probably looking at me with big confused eyes saying “Duh Christy. Writing is what I do. Writing is what I'm supposed to be doing.”

I’m a big believer that if you have a daily writing practice, your writing spigot will constantly be open and it feels easy to do. (Easy = good right?) But if the only thing you do is write, I have a inkling that you will soon find that your writing is feeling a bit…stiff.

The creative juices aren’t putting out the rockstar quality content that you have grown to expect and love. You aren’t feeling the same enthusiasm pumping through your veins as you approach your writing chair.

That's because writing inside a void means you run the risk of becoming one-dimensional.

Shields are up Captain!

It’s a fine balance between our internal and external worlds. What waits for us on the boundary, lurking on the external side of the fence, are distractions. In my case, I feel like no sooner do I found my writing groove, then I get one of those annoyingly effective, gate crashing distractions pounding on my mental door demanding to be let in.

We feel compelled to create a force field around our work in order to ensure that we aren’t distracted. We close ourselves off to everything, including things that normally inspire us, because we feel like we have no choice. We become narrowly focused on “job one”. The “priority”. And to hell with everything else.

External reality feeds our inner creativity

As I’ve mentioned in my previous post, I am a book-devouring vampire. Recently, feeling a bit of a existential burnout approaching, I decided to dive in and finish a book series that I started over a month ago but never got around to finishing (because ya know- I'm busy!).

That one book turned into four books. Over the course of three days. Throw in an additional book that I pre-read for my kid and four books turned into five.

The crazy thing is that instead of feeling like my brain had blown a gasket, I felt energized. I realized that my muse was actually telling me that she needed something. She had been crying out for weeks that she needed fuel. I just wasn't listening. I had blocked her out and written those pleas off as another distraction.

Just like our bodies need food nutrients to survive, our creative energies need spiritual and inspirational nutrients to thrive. If you starve your muse, it's going to let you know. You will be powerless because the muse is so hungry for that thing that it's been craving that you don't stand a chance.

It’s worth the time to sit down and figure out what nourishes your writing so that you don't swat off those big red warning signs and plow ahead like nothing is going on. You need to bake in the required time to do your "other thing(s)" so your creativity doesn't fizzle and fall flat.

It's time for you to chime in. What else do you do besides write?

(photo credit pasukaru76)

Just Because You Can Use That Word In A Sentence Doesn’t Make You Smart

2011-04-05T05:30:21Z

I’m a writer and book-devouring vampire, so naturally I have an ear for words. It fascinates me to see how we cram two words together to create an entirely new word, or use a tone of voice to completely change the definition of what a word means.

I’ve grown quite fond of the sarcastic “awesome”, which if I remember correctly was popular back when I was a lot younger. So not only are we constantly trying to come up with pithy new words (“tweet” anyone? Have you “unfriended” anyone lately? Be sure to “Digg” me- wink, wink), but we also recycle things we used to say- it’s not unlike fashion trends.

What is particularly interesting though is how we use words to try to make ourselves appear smarter.

True confession time:

When I was in the 8^th grade, a boy that I was very good friends with told me he didn’t want to be friends with me anymore because I used “big words”.

Horrors!

True confession time x2:

My husband still tells me that I use “fancy words” too often.

Now in my defense, my excuse is exactly the same now as it was then. I read all the time (remember- book-devouring vampire here). I’m soaking up all sorts of interesting jargon and catch phrases. I’m rediscovering words that I don’t hear that often. I love it.

And so things that I read often flow right out of my mouth no matter who I’m talking too. I’m not thinking about it. I just say it.

But apparently there are people out there that perceive me as puffing out my chest and trying to appear smarter than them by using these BIG words.

Have you thought about how people perceive you by the words you choose?

I was watching a video post today from Jonathan Fields. He and his guest, Julien Smith, discussed people’s perception when bloggers, writers, speakers, etc. use swear words. (The comments are lively, so the post is definitely worth a gander.) Here’s another instance where someone’s choice of words colors people’s perception.

So word choice is important. Word choice can make you stand out. Word choice can polarize.

But digging out a dictionary and slapping a bunch of random words into your story isn’t going to make your story better. It'll probably make it worse.

Put The Thesaurus Down

I once read a bit of advice about writing dialogue. It said that using “said” by itself was always better than trying to modify it with an adverb. (e.g. “she said breathlessly” or “he said angrily” are better off being “he said" and "she said”.)

(This is the part where I stomp my feet a bit because "said" seems so boring! Off I went in search of things I could say instead of "said". Thank you Stumbleupon: Other Words For Said.)

So this is what happens. We start second guessing ourselves and thinking that our writing is feeling a little stiff or stodgy. So what’s the best way to fix that? Dig out the ole thesaurus and swap out some tired words for fancy new ones of course!

This is where things go terribly wrong.

Hide becomes ensconced.
Grudge becomes rancor.
Kill becomes extirpate.
Alone becomes onliest.

See what I mean?

Sometimes saying things plain as day is the best way to do it. I’m all for throwing in a bit of intrigue or impact with a well-placed curse word, or a word that fits into your story because it’s exactly what your character would say.

But if you have to reach for it, then you’ve probably gone too far. And when you've gone too far the reader can tell- the whole experiment falls flat, and you come across as disingenuous.

Big words don’t make you smarter. But how you choose to use them definitely does.

(photo credit sjockell)

Stop Hating On Yourself: Build Your Compliment File

2011-04-04T05:00:24Z

I have a challenge for you this week. In principle, it probably sounds really easy. But my guess is, in reality, it's going to be hard.

Because if you are like me, you suffer from a disease called "I-can't-take-a-compliment-itis".

The disease is insidious because of it's chameleon like tendencies. If you wake up in a good mood, it wraps you in an invisible. vinyl raincoat to ensure that compliments slide right off your back.

If you are going through a more trying time, especially if you are going out on a limb and trying anything new, it engulfs you in full body armor guaranteed to repel any compliment within a hundred yards.

There is a good chance that you don't even know you have this silent, but destructive disease.

Does this sound familiar?

Someone gives you a compliment. It could be that they like what you are wearing, or something you own, or a piece of work that you did for them.

Then, "I-can't-take-a-compliment-itis" kicks in because you respond with something like:

"Yea, but..."

Or "It wasn't really me. It was team effort."

Or "I came across it totally by accident."

Or "I bought it because it was on sale."

Or "I had to drink ten cappuccinos to get even one piece of that project to work right."

Whatever happened to just saying "Thank You" with a sincere smile? Why all the rush to tell people why they shouldn't say something nice to you?

Recognizing the Problem is Half the Battle

I got lucky. I come from a background where you worked hard and didn't expect recognition for doing things like getting good grades and doing well in your activities. It's just what you were supposed to do.

So I had no idea that I had a problem accepting compliments until my husband (shortly after we started dating) got frustrated with me after I dismissed him telling me that I looked nice for our date.

He raised his voice just a little bit and said "WILL YOU JUST TAKE THE COMPLIMENT ALREADY?" Then he told me how frustrating it was to trying to tell me something he liked about me, and having me brush it off like it was nothing.

I was speechless. He was giving me an opportunity to see myself through his eyes, and by not letting him do that, I was actually making him feel silly. (That was definitely not what I wanted to do.)

It was that day that I realized I spent an awful lot of time focused on all the negative things that people told me, and in the meantime I was completely ignoring the other little bits of warmth and goodness that they were sending my way.

The Best Defense against Yourself

So you may remember that at the beginning of this post, I said I had a challenge for you this week. It's an easy but hard thing for most of us to do: Start building your compliment file.

I'm not talking a mental one either. I know that I usually get at least one sincere, warm fuzzy compliment per day. My husband tells me that I look pretty. A co-worker will tell me that I did a great job on a project. A neighbor tells us that our lawn looks nice. The restaurant server says our kids have great manners. Somebody on Twitter tells me that I rock. Compliments come in many forms, and from may different places.

A freely offered compliment is a genuine and caring thing that someone can do for you. The only thing you have to do in return is say “Thank You”.

What I'd love to ask you to do is make a quick note wherever you take notes (a notebook, a voice memo on your phone, Evernote, etc.) of what each compliment was. If you don't have time to record the actual compliment, at least make a quick hashtick that you received one.

Then at the end of the week, come back to this post and tell me in the comments how many compliments you received. The best part of this activity is that you've created a guaranteed line of defense against your Inner Critic the next time she comes knocking.

Because the next time you have a rotten day, and those wiggles of self-doubt start dancing a pity party in your head, whip out your (very real) compliment file. Once you consciously pull back and focus on the good things that people have said about you, you will feel a little bit better. And once you feel a little bit better, it’s not a big leap to start feeling A LOT better. Your batteries will start to feel like they have juice in them again.

I can't wait to hear about all of your compliments!

(photo credit Daquella manera)

What Gets Your Creative Toes Tappin'?

2011-04-03T18:45:59Z

I like to experiment with music because I know it has a profound effect on my creativity levels.

When I was a teenager, I couldn't get enough of Madonna. (Today, I think I am suffering the consequences of listening to her albums over and over again at a blaring volume on my Walkman.) Sometimes I'd dance around my room, sometimes I'd write like a madwoman, and sometimes I would just lay on my bed with my eyes closed and a smile on my face.

In the 90s, I scored a part-time gig as a karaoeke DJ. I did shows three times a week, and to get everyone in the singing frame of mind, I was the one who started the show. Having gone through my fair share of heartbreak by this point in my life, I swore by country. About a year later, my boss told me that although I sang country great, my repertoire was getting a bit stale. Back to the drawing board.

When I went back to college, one of my general education requirements was a class where we studied different genres of music as it evolved through time. It opened my eyes to a whole new world. I became entranced by Vivaldi, Bach, Wagner, Philip Glass, and Ravel. I listened to classical music in the car during my commute (it help soothe the road rage).

Soon after my creative focus moved from singing back to writing. I read that Baroque music inspires writing creativity. I decided to try it out, and finally make use of the Pandora app on my iPhone. It was like finding a childhood treasure that had been hidden away in a corner of the closet. Warm memories of discovery and contentment came back, and soon my fingers were whizzing across the keyboard. As promised, I was feeling pretty inspired. Then I ventured a bit further even.

I found jazz, and not just any jazz, but early jazz. I'm talking big band, brass, tappin' your toes to the beat, moving and shakin' jazz. When I listen to it, I can't help but smile. And sometimes when I'm walking down the street listening to it, I can't stop my hips from shaking a little bit. (I'm okay with people thinking I'm a bit weird.)

Baroque music makes me feel warm and fuzzy, but early jazz makes me... happy. Deliriously happy- the "I've had four glasses of wine and I'm going to dance dance dance all night" happy.

So when I'm feeling flat, and the creative juices aren't quite flowing, I know that I can turn to music to lift me back up. In fact, this song has been in my head all week as I've been mulling over all the changes here at ThinkBlot:

Do you have a go-to genre of music of theme song whenever you are feeling stuck?

(photo credit pedrosimoes7)

The Dawn Of A New Challenge

2011-04-01T05:00:00Z

I swear I turn around and Time completely disappears. Here we are, on April Fool’s Day, and Time is hiding around the corner laughing up its sleeve at me. Because while I was busy playing hide ‘n seek with it, Time led me to the doorstep of another Customer Love challenge.

If you’ve breezed through the ThinkBlot blog in the past, you know that I have quite a sweet spot for LaVonne Ellis and all of the other Customer Love peeps. The amount of awesomeness that happens over the course of 28 days is nothing short of amazing.

My Writer’s Battle Plan was birthed during the November challenge, and I rolled out a consulting offer in February. Currently I’m sitting in a corner with twitching fingers cackling my scary laugh (I’ve been practicing) and thinking about what I can do for you this month. (Hint: It will be, to quote Rachael aka @caffeinatedelf, “epic sh!t”.)

But in the meantime my pretties (cue the cackle!), I have something sweet for you to scoop up and amuse yourself with.

I’m calling it a “Kill or Be Killed” strategy session. I devised this cunning plan because the writing game is pretty cutthroat. You gotta watch your back. So I’m offering some bona fide protection here.

And don’t forget to check out all the wonderful things happening this month in Customer Love land. No doubt there’s going to be a killing of… goodness (geez- what’d ya think I was going to say?).

(photo credit the yes man)

Why Being A Jerk Works

2011-03-31T05:00:58Z

I was tempted to use a harsher word in the headline of this post (see picture below for reference). But I'm not usually [that] blunt, especially when choosing words for my blog posts. But I feel pretty strongly about this whole concept because I see examples of it day after day.

In difficult situations, if you are willing to be a Jerk, it seems like a guarantee that you will get your way.

I don't like it. I don't enjoy having to explore that avenue when I find myself in less-than-ideal situations.

I’d like to be able to say that if I was in a courtroom, in front of a judge, I could honestly testify that "I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I’m NEVER a Jerk."

But let's be honest. I'd have to throw myself on the mercy of the court because I'm as guilty of this heinous behavior as anyone.

My husband calls it my mean bone.

The majority of the time, I want everyone to like me. I want the people around me to be happy. I don't like causing waves. But sometimes, when I get painted into a corner, I feel something deep down inside.

It’s like a twitch. The twitch of my mean bone.

It starts because I get cranky feeling like I've played by the rules. I've done what I was supposed to do. So the “good person/citizen/customer” train has well left the station. But then I can see the end of the line--and it's not where I wanted to go. No amount of cajoling and niceties is changing the conductor's mind.

I don't know what else to do.

That's when the personality that lives inside my mean bone takes over. And it’s not pretty. Regardless of how I feel about having to draw from that resource, and as much as I dislike her, I know one thing for certain.

She's unwavering. She's supremely confident. And she gets results.

Why?

I’ve spent hours reflecting on these situations. Unlike people who walk through life comfortable being a Jerk, I don’t. So when that side of me goes dormant again, happily tucked away inside my mean bone, I’m left agonizing over every little detail trying to decide how I could have handled the situation differently.

After careful review of, ahem, a "few" of my past situations, I feel like being a Jerk worked to my benefit because of one of these three reasons:

People don't like confrontation
When I cared more than they did, the other person caved
They just wanted to make me go away

These kinds of confrontations ooze negativity, and most of us would rather not go there unless we have too. If it’s easier to sidestep someone nasty, we will.

"Please, here, take it, go away and lemme alone."

In my experience, the only time that this strategy doesn't work is when I’m confronted with someone whose mean bone is bigger than mine. That's when things can get really nasty. It usually leads to an escalated situation where everybody’s a loser and I'm just ashamed of myself.

I try keep my mean bone tucked away and hidden. I’ve met people whose mean bone hangs right out there for everyone to see, and I know that's not me. While I could see the benefit of going through life always getting your way, that’s not the way that I want to live mine.

I know that I'm never going to be as kumbya as I want to be. Having a mean bone means that sometimes I will end up going in the complete opposite direction. It all depends on how passionate I feel about something, and how far I’m willing to go to get there.

It's all a learning process. One day I may win the battle against my mean bone, but for that to happen, my nice bone is going to have to show me that it can get the same results.

(photo credit mistagregory)

Chasing Profound Thoughts

2011-03-31T05:00:00Z

I suffer from perfectionism. It’s a demon I wrestle with on a daily basis, especially when it comes to my writing. It doesn’t help that many experts on blogging will tell you that if you aren’t saying something meaningful and worthwhile, then you shouldn’t even bother writing a post at all.

So mix a healthy dose of perfectionism with the scared witless fear that I’m not saying something meaningful to people and you know what you get?

Nothing. Nada. A blank page. The muse has left the building and taken with her any hope of crafting a coherent piece of writing for the day.

This kind of zero sum thinking is going to lock up your wheels for days if you let it. Let’s backtrack a bit and see if we can shake this thing loose.

Meaningful information doesn’t have to solve life's mysteries

We need a healthy dose a little bit of perspective. The idea for your post likely won’t be telling people how to shift the space time continuum or bring about world peace (and if yours does, please drop me an email because I’d love to read that!).

The average blogger just had an idea that sparked the desire to write it down and share it with other people. Therefore, we can go ahead and lower the bar a little.

Meaningful is a word that can get all muddled up with false pretence when all it really means is your reader should be able to take bits of information away that they didn’t know or hadn’t thought of before. That’s it. In a nutshell, your info gets their brains jazzed.

So how are some ways can we can be “meaningful”?

Dig up obscure facts: With time passing by as quickly as it does, I usually don’t remember what I ate for breakfast, much less what the United States paid for the territory included in the Louisiana purchase. ($15M if you were curious) Obscure facts make great dinner party conversation, so make me sound smart please.

Give me action steps: Information is great, but practical ways to actually apply that information is even better. Being able to teach others is a gift, and if you can share with me 10 ways to give my dog at home grooming treatments without losing my mind (and make her look fabulous to boot) and without spending hundreds of dollars, you had me at Hello.

Share resources: If your ideas pique my curiosity, then I want to know more. So where do I go? I could Google, but it would make it so much easier if you would tell me where you went for that information. So then the next time I want to find out where the best horror writing contests are, your site will be the first place I check.

I think there are far too many people out there trying to be profound. Preaching rhetoric is boring. When I’m poking around online, I want facts, I want action, and I want to know where to find more to make my life easier and better. It's that simple.

So if you can do any of those for me, you’ve provided a meaningful experience. You may even have shared information that will change my life.

And just like that, you’ve given me something profound.

(photo credit by Diganta Talukdar)

Tuesday Tip: A New Boo (Of The Unscary Variety)

2011-03-29T05:01:48Z

Last summer, I had the brilliant idea that I was going to go into podcasting. It sounded exciting and oh so fun! But I quickly ran into issues of the technical kind. Things like: how to record it, where to upload/store it and how to (easily) embed it here on my site.

After tinkering around with a couple of different tools over the course of a few days, my brilliant idea was tucked away for a rainy day. Until this past weekend.

I discovered Audioboo.

If you've got something to that you'd like to record, and it's less than 5 minutes long, this may be a tool for you to consider. You can create a "Boo" with your phone or via the computer, and have a ready made file available to upload to Twitter or Facebook in minutes. You can even embed it on your site.

Here's the ThinkBlot Intro Boo.

Listen!

Try it out and let me know what you think!

Dead Simple Ways To Avoid A Storytelling Headache

2011-03-28T05:01:50Z

I brace myself for a wild ride every time my kids put on their storytelling hats.

What is fun is that they get so animated and excited that they practically bounce up and down.

Then they demand your attention. For them, it is extremely important to recreate every minute detail. If you don’t drop everything immediately to follow along they will either:

Get Louder OR
Get Louder and insist on starting over

Once they are certain they will no longer be interrupted, the tidal wave of information begins and you watch in amazement thinking their little heads might explode at any moment. You wouldn’t be able to get a word in edgewise if you try.

Thismorningourbusslidonsomeiceintheroadandranintoasnowbank.Itactuallywentintosomebody’syard!

Andthenthebushitatreebranchintheyardandtoreitrightoff.Thenwegotstuckandcouldn’tgetoutsothebus

driverhadtocallforhelp.Nobodyelsebroughttheircellphonesothebussriverwastheonlyonewhohadone.

Wehadtogetpulledoutbyatowtruckandittooktwohoursforthemtodothat.Iknowitwasthatlongbecause

thebusdriverkeptgivingustimechecks.Wedidn’tgettoschooluntillunchtime.

What appears above is a true story. It happened to my kids this week and I’m telling it to you exactly the way they told it to me. I’ll give you bonus points if you were able to actually read it and understand it, because we couldn’t the first time.

We had to ask them to go back and tell it to us again. Slower this time. We caught enough of the keywords to understand that the bus had an accident and the kids got to school late.

The second time through, we interrupted, much to their chagrin. We asked questions to make sure we had the story straight and that there truly hadn’t been any real damage or injury other than to a poor tree in somebody’s yard.

Are You Giving Your Readers a Headache?

I think sometimes we tell our stories like kids. We are so excited about what we have to say that we are determined to get it out before anyone has a chance to interrupt us. We don’t pause to make sure that the story is clear or that they understand why we are telling the story in the first place.

In those instances, it becomes less about the story and more about the storyteller. (I get to tell it first!!) So basically we do a word vomit on our readers. If we throw it all out there, people will still get it. Right?

Wrong.

How we approach the act of telling the story is as important as the story itself. And most of time your readers, who have no emotional investment in the story, aren’t going to stick around for the second time through.

Here are some dead simple ways to tell a story without giving your reader a headache:

Make sure it has a beginning, middle, and end. Sometimes it feels like we should jump to the end to catch readers with the crazy plot twist. But actually this leaves us more confused. We don’t know how we got there, and worse yet, we may yawn at the dramatic condescending closing act. You need to build some suspense.
Slow down. It’s easy to get swept up in the story and it’s natural to want to push ahead. But sometimes the tiniest detail at the beginning is the thing that ties it up at the end with a neat little bow. So don’t rush it and forget those details that pack a punch.
Don’t leave us hanging. You’ve managed to snag someone’s attention. They’re interested. They are there with you. And then you disappear before closing the loop. Unless it was intentional (and every story plot that sets us up for a sequel is intentional) all’s you do is leave the reader frustrated and annoyed. We feel cheated and angry (likely not the emotion you want to convey).

And a bonus tip: hitting us over the head and getting louder with your information with inappropriate bold fonts and overuse of ALL CAPS is never a good idea. (Ouch!)

So next time you are super excited and ready to share your thoughts with the world, do us all a favor and take a step back. Take a deep breath. Bring some objectivity back into the picture and make sure you are hitting all the right notes to build your story arc.

You'll leave your readers hanging on your every word and wanting more.

(photo credit NickPiggott)