A friend posted several very helpful links this morning and I thought I would share.

Voice and Pitch (great blog on basic communication and genre identification)

tips for finishing a draft (lovely advice – title is self explanatory)

importance of writing ugly (this is the first part of a series on getting through that rough draft by letting the story come first)

These were great references on rough drafts and even just basic storytelling (for the point of any writing is to get the story across, and the first step to that is finding the story and pinning it down).

While most of these references appealed to me, I couldn’t help but wonder if there is anyone else out there that works like I do: visually. If I could draw the story frame-by-frame or even storyboard it, I would. Longhand scribbles flow faster though, and my real fear is I will lose the visual before I get it down on paper.

Take the sequel I’m writing, every time I finish a chapter (or scene), I go back in a day or three and check the gate to make sure it’s a rough approximation of what I saw initially in my head. If not, I tweak the camera angle and dialogue until it’s close. The more good gate scenes I get, the further and faster I progress. (And the closer I get to playing in the editing room to find that final product.)

If you are willing to share, let me know if you have any writing quirks, habits, or rules that get you through the first draft of your story.

P.S. Forgot to link to Jana’s blog where her guest poster Grace Duncan gave some terrific (and simple) advice on writing. Sorry about that!