Reading. Writing. Me.
There were pancakes everywhere. The whole house was covered with them. There was no rhythm or logic to their placement, no obvious tale they were meant to tell. Yet it was clear that they were the key. The issue of the issue.
The longer I write fiction, the more I realize that my version of "write what you know," looks like me working through my trauma by writing it. The first time I knowingly wrote my trauma into a story was when I wrote about a character being molested. It was supposed to be her story, part... Continue Reading →
NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. Every November, writers across the globe shoot to get 50,000 words of a new novel down before 11:59pm, November 30th. I first heard about it in 2015. That year I wrote the first draft of a middle-grade novel called Land of the Golden Raindrops. In 2017, I wrote the first... Continue Reading →
This summer, I'm trying to buckle down and get through a complete rewrite of my fantasy novel, Immortal Bond. It's been slow going, not just because of our upcoming bundle of joy, but because of the growth I've experienced as a writer since last summer. I started my rewrite by analyzing my characters in each... Continue Reading →
Done. And considering my sweet little complication this semester, I think I did a pretty good job. Not that I'm taking sole credit for that. My husband ran me back and forth to every class, my mother-in-law encouraged me and proofread my writing, most of my professors were sweet and sympathetic to the challenges I had... Continue Reading →
Brave art is beautiful art. My husband reminded me of this after I bemoaned the increasing number personal elements that seem to be creeping their way into the short story I'm handing in for my Fiction Writing class. About an hour ago, I finished my third draft and had so much of my own self and struggles leaking... Continue Reading →
I'm not accustomed to this level of praise from anyone but my husband. My professor is holding out my short story to the rest of the class, my √++ a loud red against the white paper. It's screaming, "loved it" almost literally, because that's what he's written next to my grade. "Look at the format. This is... Continue Reading →
Since starting school, I've had little time to work on my personal writing (or breathe either, when it comes down to it), but my characters and novels are never far from my thoughts. I miss them. I've spent the last three years pouring my life into them and it feels like someone viciously stripped me of... Continue Reading →
I scare a little too easily to take much of a shine to the horror genre, but in the past months I've been experiencing a severe emotional shakeup that reaches back to the roots of my childhood. All the raw and repressed pain and anger I'm dredging up has been attacking me in my sleep, filling... Continue Reading →
This summer is going to be madness. I'm writing this post on the second day of June, and already I'm about to tear out my hair by the roots. Between doctor's appointments, my brother's wedding, and various other items under the vague category of "things," Timothy and I have been running around like a horde of ants... Continue Reading →
R. C. Svendsen 