Productivity – The Productive Author

The Productive Author’s Guide to Dictation

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by Cindy Grigg

How to Travel for Writing Research: Outmaneuvering the Excuses!

Sometimes our reasons for not doing something turn into excuses. Here’s how this has been for me surrounding travel, to inform a story I’m writing.

by Cindy Grigg

Dictation: The Best Trick I Have Found for Writing Faster or Under Deadline

Use your voice to reach those deadlines or NaNoWriMo goals. Here’s how to write faster when you need to.

by Cindy Grigg

Using Pressure To One’s Advantage As a Writer

Since I’ve been fairly immersed in pressure this week, I focused on finding more ways to channel it. Here’s what I came up with. Financial Pressure – Rar! I had some writing and publishing expenses beyond my usual monthly investment. Unusual outlays of cash have always created dissonance for me as an artist, because I […]

by Cindy Grigg

Daring to Be Uncomfortable as a Writer

Last night I was at a singles event where a relationship expert presented techniques on how to flirt. And then we were turned loose to flirt. – All introverts just shrieked in horror. – I know because I pick up the introvert frequency. While I’ve trained myself to be a fairly outgoing person, I had […]

by Cindy Grigg

Increasing Writerly Decisiveness

So much of the time, we wring our hands that we don’t know what to do about our problems, writing problems included. But fascinatingly, we do know what to do in many cases. We just don’t like the answers! I’m sometimes guilty of this. Maybe my options are not tidy or clear-cut, which makes me […]

by Cindy Grigg

Adventures in Extreme Novel Outlining

I began writing fiction as an interior decorator of rooms that were ill-designed. “Prose is architecture, not interior decoration.” – Ernest Hemingway Specifically, my early stories feature quirks and atmosphere but lack something in orchestration and plot. In other words, I began this adventure as a die-hard pantser who resisted outlining and structuring. Over the past […]

by Cindy Grigg

Writing and Creativity Podcasts to Love

These days I prefer listening to my reading, as opposed to absorbing books, news, and articles with my eyes. I discovered this while pursuing my initiative to sit less and move more. We’ve probably all heard by now that sitting all day is terrible for us, and as writers we tend to sit plenty! To fight […]

by Cindy Grigg

Why Writing a Novel Feels Both Expansive and Claustrophobic

An interesting phenomenon takes place as you increase word count. Over the past year, I have been writing works of speculative fiction to several different lengths including short stories (under 7,000 words), serial episodes (about 10,000 words), novellas (about 30,000 words), and novels (70,000+ words). A Novel’s Unique Spatial Paradox I’ve found that with novels, […]

by Cindy Grigg

Leveraging Writing Conferences

As a writer, I’ve learned to love the conference scene. Actually, I’m completely drained by large social gatherings–evidence that I am a legitimate introvert. But here’s why I have evolved to deem conferences worthy of the energy expenditure! This list is in context of a few highlights from Life, the Universe, and Everything 2015 (LTUE), […]