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This is a list of ten things you can look forward to here on this blog over the coming year. I've been planning quite a few workshops and things to do around here to make life more interesting. I've also been debating making a forum for these workshops. Anyone who would be willing to help me run it should contact me at diannalgunn@gmail.com about it.

Here are some things you can expect to see:

1. Early Releases Of Ebooks Bleed and Myths of Tamraq will both be announced here before anywhere else. I will also be releasing a couple free PDFs of myths. A Cutter's Journey will be announced here and on its own website a week before I go to any of my regular forums and places to announce it.

2. Nanowrimo World-Building Workshop This will be a two week workshop, with a half hour exercise every day. You can expect things like building a God, building a religion, looking at architecture, looking at weather, culture, and art. It will be run in the second week and second last week of October.

3. Nanowrimo Pep Talks I will be doing a weekly pep talk for Nanowrimo once again on this blog this year, because I had lots of fun last year. I'll also be looking for a couple other Nanoers and asking them to do guest post pep talks.

4. Dear Diary Workshop This will be going on next February. I will be doing my own Dear Diary, and each day have a list of questions to consider when writing your own. More on this later, when I have a proper 'course' outline type of thing.

5. World-Building Workshop This will be a multi-post workshop, each post focusing on a different part of the world building. There will be two exercises a week. This and the following few workshops already have basic outlines, and I'm seriously considering starting a forum for the different workshops on this blog.

6. Religion-Building Workshop This is another multi-post workshop which will be six weeks long, one exercise per week. It will cover how I usually build my religions and have various questions to ask. One of the exercises will be myth-building.

7. God-Building Workshop The Gods are characters too. This will be a four post workshop, two posts each over two weeks, about how to create a God.

8. Culture-Building Workshop This will be a six week workshop like the Religion one, with exercises focusing on art, myth, music and language.

9. Character-Building Workshop This workshop will be like the others, showing how I develop characters.

10. Plot-Building Workshop This workshop will cover various ways to build plot, including my reviews on two or three different methods and an overview of my own personal method.

These and much more will be coming over the next year. Thinking about it, I will be creating a forum in October which will have sub-forums for each workshop so that people who do the workshops at any time can discuss them.

Thanks for reading,
~Dianna
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Developing Your Voice

July 8th 2009 23:20
I often see writers on various forums asking the same questions. Usually they're questions about things like chapter length, pacing, character building-all those important things. One of the most frequent questions asked isn't specifically about your story though-it's about developing your voice.

Writers ask 'How does one develop their voice?'

And other writers generally answer 'By practicing.'

It's the truth. The only way to really develop your voice as a writer is by writing. You have to experiment; learn what forms of writing you're comfortable with-novels, novellas, short stories, poetry. You have to figure out what genres you like to write in-again, something you can only really learn by trying different ones. You have to figure out what PoVs are comfortable for you: first, second, third.

All of these things you can only learn by writing. Most of us, when we start writing, emulate our favourite writers to varying degrees-some of us do it consciously, and for some of us it just sort of happens. Over time we break away from these emulations and develop our own writing style, which usually still has some influence from our favourite writers but which has become unique, distinct to us.

To develop your voice, you should write, write, and write some more. Try some prompts, some exercises. Try to stretch yourself throughout various genres. Try playing with different chapter lengths. Different viewpoints. Experiment. Try writing flash fiction and try writing novels. Figure out what works for you.

As you write more and more your own distinct voice will begin to come out of the words, out onto paper. You will develop a certain way of saying things, a certain speed at which you usually say them. Some of us end up with flowery voices-Anne Rice-and others end up with brutal, working-man voices-Stephen King-but most of us are somewhere in the middle.

We all have our own voice. It's not really about developing it, it's about finding it and learning to use it properly.
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For Young Writers

June 30th 2009 04:48
A long time ago (something like a year and a bit, I believe) I signed up for the Fundsforwriters newsletters. (Fundsforwriters, Fundsforwriters Small Markets, and WritingKid respectively) WritingKid is a newsletter which focuses on displaying markets for young people. (From the age of 'I can write' to college age.)

My publication in Teen Ink was largely thanks to this newsletter, and now I've discovered a small press which publishes books by teens. Because of their restrictions on violence, none of my proper novel-length projects are suitable for this publisher.

Youthful Wisdom Press (read on for the link) is a publishing company which publishes blog books (I might look into this), short story collections, poetry collections and novels by young people aged 13-18. As this is not only the only small press I've found specifically for young people that is open to several genres but it is one of the few publishers that actually publish poetry collections, it's a wonderful opportunity for those in the age range.

Personally I will be querying them for my next poetry collection and hopefully have found myself a publisher for at least one, hopefully more, poetry collections throughout the next two years and a bit. I wish I'd found this place a little sooner-last year, when I published Into The Shadows-so that I could have used the resource for a longer period of time.

This is an amazing resource for young writers. I especially like the fact that they do not require agents, as agents are incredibly hard to find, especially for those of us under eighteen. I look forward to (hopefully) working with them in the future and will keep everyone here updated on how it goes.

Links:

Fundsforwriters: Really Long Link
Youthful Wisdom Press: Really Long Link

If anyone who reads this queries Youthful Wisdom Press, please email me and tell me about your personal experience with the editors themselves. Email me at diannalgunn@gmail.com and I will post your experiences (with or without your name as you see fit) on my blog so that my readers can see more deeply into this press.
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Struggling

January 29th 2009 04:07
So far in 2009 I've managed to blog consistently, but it hasn't been easy. There's been a lot going on in my life outside my writing, and my writing is suffering for it; it's just hard for me to write when I'm going through hard times-at least, anything other than poetry.

Things have sort of settled down now, and I'm hoping the writing will become easier for me, but I can't know for sure. We all have times when we struggle, even to do the things we love-especially for those of us who suffer depression


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Working

January 25th 2009 08:03
Writing isn't always easy. The words sometimes come only with force. Sometimes we get bogged down trying to create our worlds. We get fed up when we find out that somebody's already had the same idea. We get depressed, bored, fed up, angry with all the world and with our muses.

We get angry because everything we're writing sounds like crap. We get angry because we feel we aren't getting anywhere


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Learning

January 17th 2009 03:52
Writing is in large part a learning process. A writer needs to be open to new things; this is why we have classes and workshops and books about writing. Not all things will work for you, this is true. We're all different. You probably won't find a class that's absolutely perfect for you. A method won't always work.

But if you don't try new things, how can you possibly know? Everything changes; our writing should too. Let's take the example of a well known author, JK Rowling of the Harry Potter series


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What makes a writer?

December 12th 2008 06:31
I've gone over this before, but I was reading a thread on Forward Motion earlier and it's been a while, so I felt like writing about this topic.

What makes a writer in my mind is someone who loves to write. Someone who can't help themselves; they just need to do it like most people need to breath. Writing is a passion, writing is a love; when the going gets tough we still keep going. Writers love to do what they do, and are willing to work at it


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Only Writers Can Understand Writers...

October 25th 2008 16:57
I have many, many different circles in which I travel. About seven different groups in which I hang out on a regular basis, and even more who I talk to online. And I have to say, my favourites are my writer friends.

Why? Because if I tell them I can't make it to something because I'm too busy writing, they understand. When I talk about my binder full of notes on different stories and worlds, they understand. When I talk about my love for words, they get it


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When Everything Is Just Too Much

October 4th 2008 23:28
So let me tell you something. School is stressing me out; I'm trying to force myself to go but it isn't working very well. Things at home aren't pleasant either. I'm stressed; so stressed that I've been sick on and off for two weeks now. Nanowrimo is on the horizon.

It's times like these when anybody-writer or otherwise-starts to wonder about all their obligations and if they're worth it. It's times like these when normally I would abandon the blog for weeks at a time; I'm trying not to. It's sort of working. It's times like these when we just want to throw in the towel


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The Magical Moments

September 10th 2008 08:46
Why do we live life?

For those moments of magic, those moments of beauty and joy and love.
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Why Do I Write?

September 1st 2008 05:57
I've written about this topic before. But I've been thinking about it a lot lately, so I decided to talk about why I write-not only this blog, but everything else that I write.

I write because without writing, I would be locked away with no outlet to express myself


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I have no idea who said that first. Nor do I really care. It makes the point I'm trying to get across, and that is the important thing.

Last year I wrote a story, had it critiqued, and edited it a fair bit-almost rewriting it completely. I sent it to seven markets and was rejected by all of them. For a while, I didn't submit it anywhere, because I didn't have any good markets to submit it to


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Publishing is the dream of many, many writers. Including myself. Publication can be difficult; to be a successful writer borders the 'pipe dream' line. It isn't quite a pipe dream-it's doable with enough work, persistence, and talent-but it isn't easy or for the weak of heart.

Take, for example, JK Rowlings. She's an incredible success story, worth billions upon billions of dollars. She was a single mother who submitted to over thirty different publishers. And now she's a rich woman known the world over for her books. I'm not going to comment on their quality; this post isn't ABOUT quality of writing. It's about determination


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Write What You Love...

July 18th 2008 05:35
Some people say 'write what you know'. But if I recall correctly, Stephen King and I have the same belief-that it is best to write what you love.

Because we can all write about what we learned in school, but most of us wouldn't want to. We know it-but we do not love it. And if we are forced to write something we do not love, it is by far a lesser product than what it would be if we loved it


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Words On A Page

June 16th 2008 03:56
Writing: the art of putting COHERENT words on a page... and so much more.

Just because you can perform the act of writing words coherently doesn't make you a true writer. A true writer takes talent and hard work. To be a true writer you have to be determined to write, to want to write, to love writing


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A Writer's Work

June 13th 2008 23:14
What good is writing?

Let me tell you what writing is good for


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Trying To Start Again

June 13th 2008 21:09
It's so hard... so hard. I've been through hell the last few months and I've lost all drive to live. All drive to write.

But I'm back. I'm going to try again. I HAVE to try again. If I am to survive the hardest trials of my life, if I am to survive these things, I must write. I have always written. It is my release. It has been with me since grade three, one of my hard years. It was there when I had to move, Daddy got sick, my parents split up. It was there all throughout the worst school ever


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A Lack Of Drive

March 11th 2008 00:47
I haven't been writing much and to be honest a lot of my drive seems to have disappeared with a stressful weekend. I'm sick, lacking smokes, possibly being broken up with, among other things.

It sucks to be me. And when it sucks to be me... sometimes that's good for my writing, other times it's horrible. Right now it's horrible


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Writing Is My Work

February 27th 2008 04:40
Writing is my work, my passion, my joy in life. Writing is everything to me; it is the one thing I have had for six years, the one thing that I rely on and trust in.

And there may be something called a 'day job' but I'm praying I'll never need one. I guess I didn't really see much hope until that publication. Now I'm out searching for more of the same and I'm ridiculously happy


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Back

February 14th 2008 12:41
Have you ever noticed that the best writers go through some of the hardest times? I cannot begin to describe to you how much I have suffered in the last two months. I was fighting with my mother; I went into an open relationship before being dumped by a guy I'm completely head over heels with, I managed to fail all my first semester classes, and I suffered a hospital overnight after which I became severely stress sick for over a week.

All writers go through times like these. And I have written so much and been so inspired during this whole time that I'm almost grateful for the pain. In the end though, it all worked out well


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