Nat Eliason’s Post

For those interested, I just received feedback from my editor. Of course he had feedback, but the good news is that the manuscript is...very okay! (No plot holes, decently written dialogue, and sensible character arcs. Not bad for a first try!) Now I get to do a pass to 'pretty up' the prose, which, let's be honest, is the fun part of writing. After I implement his changes, the next step is querying agents. Whether my work is traditionally published or I end up self-publishing, it's very cool to have gotten this far. If you have a languishing manuscript, I encourage you to knuckle down and finish it up! It's worth the sweat.

Why is ReallyWrite free? Because we don't have time to waste untangling the structure of unnecessarily long, complicated sentences to get the information I am looking for. Do YOU have the time? If we could all just make an effort to write clearly for each other, we would collectively save so much time. Here's fun example from a book I was reading over the weekend: "In short, it is their use of that sense of time in guiding their own behavior while performing a task that is their major problem." (Don't you love it when "in short" prefaces a wordy sentence?) Even with the context, it took me a minute or two to figure out this sentence. I will never get that time back. After removing the zombie nouns, empty subjects, empty verbs, and unnecessary extra clauses, after finding the main subject and the main relationship, I figured that the author meant: "In short, these children cannot use their sense of time to guide their own behavior while performing a task."

Enhance Your Writing: The Power of Dynamic Verbs

As we begin a new week, a bit of writing advice, gleaned from a scone-making session last week. Watch below. I also wrote about this subject for the Substack platform. Check it out here: https://lnkd.in/eBTNahY2

Much of 2023, and 2022 and even 2021 has been about taking in a lot of input, and 2024 is definitely about the inputs. However, this year, I want to make sure I put a lot more output — by writing. And so this marks the journey to once again getting back to writing. Writing about my runs, about my work, about coding, and writing poems & songs. Writing about the reflections inside my head, and introspections — and putting it out there. #onwriting #writing

I hope everybody is having a great year. After a months-long schedule pause for some big personal projects in the winter, I'm back to a steady weekly writing rhythm as of this summer. Here are some key writing developments on Series One since my last update:  - Chose a new series name that better captures the mood and main characters. Domain purchased and feeling good about it (can't wait to share!) - As the shape of the outline became clearer, I chose to break Bk 4 into 2 books, so Series One is now 7 books. And I learned a new word: heptalogy. - Most significantly, the forest-level outline for all books is now complete. I have a pretty good idea of all the major moments in the series, and why each one happens. This has accelerated the productivity on my scheduled writing days. Now all these loose notes have a home, and they are cascading into place. Thanks for everyone's patience and support over the year, it means the worlds to me.

You have received an important message from the future, what does it say and how do you react? Click the link to explore this writing prompt further → https://lnkd.in/g_2DCyXz #WritingPrompt #WritingPrompts #DraftSparks

Need a last minute writing check? I am getting reading to submit a manuscript to a journal, and they offered a "pre-flight check" which usually in my experience checks formatting, but this one gave me some suggested edits on writing flow. I ended up taking most of the suggestions. Might keep using this tool even for other pieces of writing. Am curious about how it handles different kinds of errors and styles. Anyway, here's the link if others want to try. It's free.

We hear about writer's block a lot in the author world. It really bugs me when people claim it's a construction. It's almost as if they're actually saying, "You're just making excuses. Get off your duff and write." I don't think it's anywhere near that simple. In fact, I think a big part of the equation is a feeling that affects everyone at some point: imposter syndrome. • "I have this cool idea, but how can I possibly do it justice?" • "Why would anyone want to read something by little ol' *me*?" • "Who am I to think I can do this?" This gets worse if someone important to you (e.g., a parent or teacher) has criticized your writing in the past. And even if you've already written something you think is good, the imposter syndrome just piles on new doubts: "Ugh, this scene is a disaster. How am I ever supposed to make it as good as my other scene/book/whatever?" (Conveniently, these thoughts ignore the fact that you've probably already edited those scenes/books/whatever quite a bit!) So what can we do about it? Well, I'm no expert, but here are two things that have helped me: 1. Set a specific deadline for myself. For example, I decided I wanted to finish a complete draft of my main WIP by the end of 2023. (After literally seventeen years of working on it, it was about time!) 2. LET THE DARN THING BE IMPERFECT. The second step was the hardest, though doing NaNoWriMo helped. I have OCD and was raised by abusive, perfectionistic parents, so it was super difficult to just plop down on-the-nose dialogue and way-too-detailed descriptions as I pushed through the story. I cringed a LOT. *And* it taught me that it's not the end of the world if my first draft is a mess. It's hard. I get it! If you want to try this, start small—just a deadline for a scene, maybe. And as you write, try a tool like Fighter's Block (https://buff.ly/3vXskvV) to force you to keep adding words. Or you could simply reduce the window size of your word-processing program so you can only see a line or two and have less temptation to endlessly edit as you go. What tools or tricks have helped you keep writing despite imposter syndrome? Comment below! #TheStoryEngineer #TuesdayTips #WritersBlock #ImposterSyndrome

My all-time favorite writing tip: Replace conjugations of "to be" with stronger verbs. I learned this from BU Professor Michelle Seaton. To this day, when writing just about anything for wider consumption at work, I still search for "is" and "are" and then re-write where possible. I'd love if hemingwayapp.com adds this feature someday. Image from https://lnkd.in/esJuzMSh. #nottobe