Tara Maya's Tales

Registration for the 30 Day Novel Workshop closes soon so sign up today and get day-by-day and step-by-step video tutorials and tips for writing your NaNoWriMo novel. You can follow the videos at your own pace and will have access to all the videos through the end of the year. In addition to the free workbook, there are resource guides and special bonuses to help you achieve your NaNo goals! Check out the FREE intro videos  here . They'll only be available for a couple more days!  With the 30 Day Novel Workshop you'll get: Daily tutorial videos targeted to fix any problems arising with you novel, and speed you past creative blocks into a whirlwind of creative brainstorming. Practical, easy tips and tricks you can apply IMMEDIATELY to make your plot rock and your characters connect with your reader. Blueprints, workbooks and resources you can turn to for help with specialty scenes -- how to write sensuous love scenes, how to build suspense, the special rules to ...

Registration for the 30 Day Novel Workshop closes soon so  sign up today  and get day-by-day and step-by-step video tutorials and tips for writing your NaNoWriMo novel. You can follow the videos at your own pace and will have access to all the videos through the end of the year. In addition to the free workbook, there are resource guides and special bonuses to help you achieve your NaNo goals! Check out the FREE intro videos  here . They'll only be available for a few more days!  Register here  for:  Daily tutorial videos targeted to fix any problems arising with you novel, and speed you past creative blocks into a whirlwind of creative brainstorming. Practical, easy tips and tricks you can apply IMMEDIATELY to make your plot rock and your characters connect with your reader. Blueprints, workbooks and resources you can turn to for help with specialty scenes -- how to write sensuous love scenes, how to build suspense, the special rules to follow to wri...

Registration for the 30 Day Novel Workshop closes soon so sign up today for day-by-day and step-by-step video tutorials and tips for writing your NaNoWriMo novel. You can follow the videos at your own pace and will have access to all the videos through the end of the year. In addition to the free workbook, there are resource guides and special bonuses to help you achieve your NaNo goals! Check out the FREE intro videos here . They'll only be available for a few more days!  Register here for:  Daily tutorial videos targeted to fix any problems arising with you novel, and speed you past creative blocks into a whirlwind of creative brainstorming. Practical, easy tips and tricks you can apply IMMEDIATELY to make your plot rock and your characters connect with your reader. Blueprints, workbooks and resources you can turn to for help with specialty scenes -- how to write sensuous love scenes, how to build suspense, the special rules to follow to write exciting brawls and bat...

I'm going to be running a 30 Day Novel No Fail Formula workshop  this November. But to get you started I have some tutorial videos that are completely free--including a free workbook you can download to follow along. (We've had such a HUGE response that our server is overwhelmed. There may be a delay if receiving the workbook, in which case  email me , and I will send it to you personally, so you can get started. … But please be patient, I'm not ignoring you, I will answer EVERY email in the order I receive it, but there are a LOT! lol I'm glad it's so popular but success brings its own problems too.) Remember, the free videos are ONLY going to be up for a SHORT while. Watch them now, while you can. The workshop registration is also only going to be open A FEW DAYS, so either opt in or email me personally to get on the list now, to be informed when it opens. You can also join us on Facebook . I look forward to seeing you there!

"I just can't face editing my novel!" Do you hate editing? Me too. Or I used to. That’s because editing usually involved the mental equivalent of ripping open my chest with a rusty knife and tearing out my internal organs. It doesn’t have to be that way. When I first used the Rich Outline method – and it was hard for me, not coming naturally at all – I discovered that if I wasn’t trying to rearrange the major plot organs of my novel to force it to make sense, Revision was actually the most enjoyable stage of the work. That’s because I had raced through the draft, writing crudely and sloppily, but now I could relax and polish my prose to my heart’s content. I was easier to focus on writing beautifully when I wasn’t also trying to figure out what was going on at the same time. I’m hoping that if these Tips helped you (or me) at all, you’re in the same position now. You have a solid but ugly draft, which is akin to the steel scaff...

Cut hard scenes down to size. Some scenes are daunting. Especially endings. The final showdown? The shocking reveal? The declaration of love? The dawning insight into the Meaning Of It All? What might cause you to stumble on a hard scene? 1. Perfectionism.  Maybe this is a pivotal scene, or the climax of the story, and you want it to be PERFECT. After all, if the pivot isn't clear the whole rest of the story will fail... if the ending sucks, the book will be ruined... Ahhggggg!  The pressure! 2. Flow.  You've dreamed of this scene but now that you sit down to write it, you realize it's not working. For some reason it's not flowing from the previous scene or into the following scene. 3. Ignorance.  You've never written this kind of scene before. Maybe it's suppose to be romance, and you're used to action, or it's supposed to be a chase scene but you're used to writing witty repartee at garden parties. 4. Emotion.  This scene is...

 With any luck, you know that wonderful pressure at the back of the head that comes when you are almost finished with a book and you HAVE TO FINISH IT NOW! I’ve experienced that. (So has my family, poor schmoes.) However, I’ve also had to reverse problem, rather more often. In fact, I’m having it right now. I’m almost done writing out my Tips, and because I’m ALMOST done, some whacked part of my mind feels as if I AM done. Imagine a marathon runner who comes within sight of the Finish Line and says, “Ok, I see the end. I’m done here.” And stops running before he crosses the line. That’s me. I see the end in sight and something deep inside says, “Right, then, let’s get on to the next project.” Then Something Shiny distracts me and I’m off. Forcing myself to finish those last three chapters, or that last 5,000 words or the final showdown between the white hat and black hat…. Holy Gamoly, Batman! We’re doomed! 7 Tricks to Beat Fear of Completion To en...

I use this same recipe. These are my personal tips for NaNoWriMo. You know the drill. Take only what works. If there is one theme to these Tips, it’s that not all Writing is writing. There’s a lot more to finishing a novel than just typing the scenes. It’s possible you have other stuff to do today besides sit at the computer working on your novel. I’m not going to guess what that might be… what am I, psychic? I mother three boys under six and frequently babysit one to three more young cousins along with them, so there are many times in my work week when I have to live with distractions. I can’t concentrate on writing on the computer with the kids around, so I don’t try. However, there are some activities I can do even while watching the kids. They work on their stuff and I work on mine and if I need to look up from my work to praise a castle construction or mediate a dispute, no problem. Here are some of  my low-concentration-required tasks. Your li...

A Boyd's rainforest dragon ( Hypsilurus boydii ) These are my personal tips for NaNoWriMo. You know the drill. Take only what works. Remember when your teacher told you to write a report on gladiolas that had to be ten pages long, so you changed the margins to 2 inches and the font to fourteen point Gils Sans Ultra Bold and BINGO you had a ten page paper? Yeah, you really fooled her! She never saw that trick before, you sly fox. But guess what, you can’t fool yourself. You know that page count doesn’t mean squat, so stop calculating how much you’re writing every day by page count. Page count is easily manipulated; it changes based on a million factors. There’s an entire profession devoted to manipulating page count, called a typesetter. What doesn’t change is word count. Different genres have different ideal word counts. A children’s chapter book is about 6,000 words. A Young Adult novel or a category romance is about 75,000 words. An adult thrill...

Lindsey playing Liz. A scene about a scene. These are my personal tips for NaNoWriMo. You know the drill. Take only what works. Another outline? Seriously? Yes, my friends. Yes. Another outline. Feel free to call it a Pre-Rough Draft if it makes you feel better. This time it’s digital. That’s right, time to type your outline into you computer. Refer to whatever previous outlines/cards/D&D character sheets you’ve filled out so far. This outline should show act, chapter and scene. It goes in order of your book (so, all the onstage scenes) and its more detailed than the previous outlines. Your Scene Outline is like your flight plan. Once you have it in place, to a final check-off list to make sure your plane will lift off the ground: 1. If you can, this is a good time to gauge your final wordcount. You’ll the number of chapters, and the number of soldiers in each chapter. You’ll want to make sure you’re on target for a word count appropriate fo...