Anna Staniszewski

Archives: November2009

• The Egg Timer Method

  I don’t know about the rest of you, but for the past few months I’ve been having a hard time focusing. I think it might have something to do with this newfangled thing called the internet and all its fun features such as email, IM, and Twitter. So yesterday I tried out a new time-management

• WIP Overload!

  As I’ve been crawling my way through my NaNo book (only at 11,000 words at the moment), I’ve been wondering how many projects is too many. In addition to the fairy tale retelling I’m doing for NaNo, I have another WIP, and two manuscripts I plan to revise. Is four too large of a number?
  I

• Mastering the Long Flashback

  Yesterday I listed some rules for writing short flashbacks. Today I’m going to tackle an even trickier beast: the long flashback. When done well, longer flashbacks (ones that take up much of a scene or even an entire chapter) can be extremely effective in showing us the past instead of telling us about it. However,

• Mastering the Short Flashback

  Flashbacks in writing can be wonderful tools; they help us catch a glimpse of a character’s past in order to clue us into his present (and, possibly, his future). But when done incorrectly, flashbacks can pull us out of the story or create narrative confusion.
  For a straight-forward guide to creating effective short flashbacks, I recommend

• Books That Break the Rules

  Sometimes when I’m not sure what to blog about, all I have to do is read other people’s blog posts and they get my brain going. Today it was a tidbit from an older post by Keith Snyder on things he tells his writing students. There was a lot to think about there, but this

• NaNo Video Pep Talk

  I hope everyone doing NaNoWriMo is having a word-filled and productive week. I’m staying pretty well on schedule and finding out a lot about my story. Hopefully the momentum will keep me going all the way to the end!
  Speaking of momentum, here’s a video I saw yesterday that helped perk me up. It’s by the

• Revealing Information

  Last night I watched the pilot of the new ABC series “V.” After some initial skepticism, I must say I was rather impressed. The writing was generally strong and the amount of information revealed in the first episode was refreshing. After one hour, we already know why the aliens are there and what their intentions

• NaNo Begins!

  If you’ve been living on another planet for a while, you might not have heard about NaNoWriMo and you might not know that it started on Sunday. I did NaNo last year and it was a crazy but rewarding experience. This year I’m using NaNo as an opportunity to try new things. For one, I’m

• Halloween Recap

  I hope everyone had a fabulous Halloween weekend! Since I had two costume parties to attend this year, I had fun coming up with two different costume ideas. Both nights were inspired by 1980s children’s culture. On Friday I was the illusive Carmen Sandiego while my husband went as Waldo from Where’s Waldo? As expected,