Adventures Up North

Hey there guys! My name is Sarah. Luke is one of my oldest friends and always a great encouragement when it comes to writing, so I was thrilled when he asked if I would write a post for his blog! And by thrilled I mean I thought it was really cool… But in the midst of life's craziness, this task kinda got lost in the pile of other things that I need or want to do. Now it's down to the night I have to send it in to Luke. It's now or never. Do I want to write it? Yes! Do I want to write it now? No… It's a Friday night. I want to curl up on a couch and watch a movie and drink hot chocolate. But instead, I need to write a blog post and I haven't even picked a topic. Hmmmm how about “How to write when you don't want to?” That seems applicable. I can't be the only one with this problem. The constant paradox of wanting to write but not wanting to write in that moment… What do you do in that situation? Tip #1: Write SOMETHING. How many articles/blog posts hav...

Not all of us enjoy music when writing.  But some of us don't like absolute silence either.  Sometimes, an ambient sound mixer is exactly what we need. :) Basically, an ambient sound mixer or background noise generator is an online tool that plays an ordinary ambient sound, usually one long track or a few tracks playing together.  You can usually mix these yourself, with simple sliders to adjust the sound volume of each track playing.  I find these sound mixers extremely calming, stress-relieving, and (most importantly) they help me concentrate when writing.  Here's a list of my absolute favorite online ambient sound mixers: #1: Rainy Mood.   Rainy Mood might be the most popular on this list, but in all truthfulness, it's probably my least personal favorite.  This is mainly because I find the sound of a thunderstorm rather depressing, and also rather out-of-place if it's sunny outside.  But this is a very popular and high-quality ambient sound...

The 21st Century is amazing in a lot of ways.  We have medicine and other medical technologies that help us remain healthy.  We have electronics that help us stay closer connected.  We've made our own culture, the likes of which the world has never seen before.  And we have Twitter.  Twitter is definitely the best part of the 21st Century. While many aspects of life now are much better, one of the hardest things about living in the modern age is the difficulty to connect to the past.  Even 100 years ago, culture was far closer to the ancient cultures of Rome and England, China and Egypt, to name a few.  In other words, our culture is so different from those we learn about in History class that it becomes hard to relate to them and envision them. This is especially difficult for writers because unlike  commoners  non-writers, many of us write historically-based works.  Some of us write about specific moments in history, like durin...

Last month, I talked about writing first sentences .  Thanks to all of you who read that post, and special thanks to Hannah Heath for tweeting about it!  I owe you. :)  So today, I'm going to continue that topic into something that includes the first sentence: the first chapter. Chapter One is IMPORTANT.  In many ways, it's the most important chapter in your entire novel.  This is because most readers won't keep going if they don't like your first chapter too well.  That's a lot of pressure on the author. The ultimate purpose of the first chapter is to introduce the story and hook the readers so they want to keep reading.  That's a lot easier said than done.  So without further delay, here's my list of everything that should be true of (basically) any first chapter: 1.  The first chapter should hook the readers in.  That doesn't necessarily mean a fast-paced beginning, however.  The hook can can come in all forms: an ...

Call me Ishmael. I'm sure we've all read our share of incredible first sentences like this one.  Usually, it's something simple, yet utterly profound and intrigues the reader so much that they cannot help but keep reading.  Sometimes the first sentence in funny, other times crude, and sometimes a mixture of both. The first sentence is probably one of the hardest sentences you'll have to write in your entire novel.  Why?  Well, for starters, it's also probably one of the most important sentences.  Unless your reader skipped around a bit before reading page 1, the first sentence will likely be the first, or one of the first, sentences that is read.  That's a lot of pressure on the author. Also, because this is the first sentence, it will be your reader's first taste of what is to come.  Even after just one short combination of words and punctuation, your reader will already be guessing your writing style, point of view, and even key plot points ...