Writing. Productivity. Passion. Purpose.
I think we all have those writing projects that we start and never finish, or leave with the intention of coming back to. I’ve been writing online for seven years, and over that time, there have been a few dropped projects. So here they are, in no particular order, and a brief overview of why I’m not going back to them.
I have a really “all or nothing” personality. I either need to write thousands of words or none at all, read six books in two days on nothing for months, or go hard at being healthy or eat myself into a cheesecake coma.
I’m excited to bring you a guest post by Shannon McDermott, one of the authors fromthe anthology Circuits and Slippers, which comes out September 29th! You also have the opportunity to win a copy of the anthology. Read to the bottom of this post for details.
Continue reading “Guest Post: A Long Chain, by Shannon McDermott”
Do you have a story inside you that is dying to escape, but you just don’t have the time, or energy, or you get discouraged? Maya Angelou once said “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” When you are holding on to that story, waiting for the right moment, then you are wasting time because you are carrying the burden of your untold story.
I am aware that I am not an expert, nor am I extensively published(you can check out my published work at Videshimagazine.com). However, I do have tips on how to be better at what you do, whether it’s for class or for your work of fiction, so lets get started.
As it turns out, no human being is truly original. We are all made up of a set of traits that makes us unique, but there is no real original situation. So how do you write a character who is completely unlike you in every way? For example, and this is a character we are going to workshop today, a Korean adoptee whose family is white who grew up in the northwest of the United States and has an interest in becoming a Broadway tap dancer. These are a series of ideas that are unique to a single human beings experience. So let’s break this character down into a workable, life-like person. I have chose a bunch of characteristics that I am not. I am not Korean American, nor an adoptee. I have not grown up in a white family, nor have I grown up in the Northwest. I have no interest in becoming a Broadway tap dancer. I have chosen these characteristics to demonstrate how to write a character that you are not. Let’s get started!
What is a Vegetarian Protagonist?
A protagonist who has little to no character beyond her love interest, and as a result the writer, in an attempt to find something interesting to write about with the character, makes them a vegetarian.
I read two books in a row with this premise, The Fault in our Stars by John Green, and The Dark Heroine by Abigail Gibbs. These books are drastically different in premise. Hazel is a 16 year old cancer patient being kept alive by a drug that generally doesn’t work on other people who falls in love with a cancer survivor. The Dark Heroine is about a 17 year old girl who is kidnapped by vampire royalty after witnessing the murder of 30 people. These books have very little in common besides the fact that the main characters are vegetarians.
Mehek Writes 