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What do you do on your snow days??

Life slowed down a bit today so Ben, Cookie and I put on our snowshoes and head out to find the eagles.







We didn't find those elusive eagles . . .





 but there's nothing like a walk through the woods to get your creative mind flowing again!






Cookie certainly enjoyed herself!



I think Ben did too. 

As you can see from my scattered posting schedule this week, I have a hard time outlining my life--much less my novel.

That's why I'm always looking for more advice from writers about outlining. I usually ask all my guests for their strategies, and I comb the web for more advice. The Internets are a very distracting place for writers, and the only thing that will really help your writing improve is practical advice from real writers.

Today, The Urban Muse interviews Michelle Wildgen (an editor at Tin House), the author of You're Not You.

She breaks her novel into bite-sized pieces, not letting the idea of the whole overwhelm the initial writing process: "Figure out your overall game plan as well as you can ahead of time--for me this was not a detailed outline but a general storyline--and then think maybe not to the end of the book as you first sit down to write, but the end of the chapter."

Earlier this year, novelist Lance Olsen told me something completely different: 

"Unlike many writers, I outline vigorously before launching a novel. I simply couldn't keep the symphonic structures of the sorts of texts I produce straight without doing so...I can't speak highly enough about the rewards of outlining, but I'm also the first to admit it isn't and shouldn't be for everyone."

Don't be confused. The goal here is to keep writing and don't stop. Choose the outlining method that works best for you, and start writing tonight...

"He'd applied to eight banks in his senior year at Harvard and was invited to join seven. After working for four years at Pearson Crowell, a bulge bracket investment bank, as an analyst and later as a senior associate, he got into Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar. Then he chose Kearn Davis, the sole securities firm that had rejected him as an undergraduate." 

That's a glittering piece of character development from Min Jin Lee's new novel, Free Food for Millionaires.

Lee can masterfully explain the character arc of a complex life in a few sentences, a literary skill that depends on careful outlines. Today, she explains how she organizes her novels in an exclusive interview.

Welcome to my deceptively simple feature, Five Easy Questions. In the spirit of Jack Nicholson's mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality interviews with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web writing.

Jason Boog: 

Your large collection of characters created quite an intricate plot. How did you outline your large novel? Any advice for young writers as they plot their own novels?

Min Jin Lee: 

I outline my work fairly loosely, then revise my outlines as the plots grow more complicated. I keep index cards with biographical details of my characters. Continue reading...

Pacing and continuity drive me crazy. As I slowly revise my novel, I'll get frustrated trying to decide how much time I should spend with Minor Character #703 lost in Subplot #262.

I realized that long-form script writers--the people who block out soap operas or dramatic comic strips--might have some valuable advice about pacing. Today I called on Woody Wilson for help. He's the man who has written comic strip dramas, Rex Morgan, M.D. and Judge Parker, for the last 15 years.

Welcome to my deceptively simple feature, Five Easy Questions. In the spirit of Jack Nicholson's mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality interviews with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web writing.

Jason Boog: 

How do you create a newspaper comic script? How do you take a story idea and pace it into a story-line that stretches for month at a time? Any advice for writers looking to extend a story idea into a longer, serialized format?.

Woody Wilson:

A "continuity" newspaper feature is written the same way you would write a television show. Continue reading...

"Kafka's writing will always make one feel a little foolish, a little tongue-tied. One will find oneself standing there in a kind of baffled wonder that will insist upon a slightly new mode of perceiving, a slightly new way of speaking." 

That's a passage from textual maze of Lance Olsen's new novel, Anxious Pleasures.

Lance Olsen literally wrote the book on writing, a handbook for fledgling writers called Rebel Yell. In addition, he has written nine novels and his work has appeared in scores of magazines.

This week he is our special guest, discussing his new book and sharing tips for fledgling writers.

Welcome to my deceptively simple feature, Five Easy Questions. In the spirit of Jack Nicholson’s mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality interviews with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web publishing.

Jason Boog: 
Anxious Pleasures criss-crosses, time, space, and different writing styles. How did you outline this novel? In other words, how did you plan (and keep under control) this complicated weave of text as you wrote? Any general advice for outlining and plotting novels?

Lance Olsen:
Unlike many writers, I outline vigorously before launching a novel. Continue reading...