What to do when your Novel is a Beautiful Mess

Words to Write by

Even published authors have problems getting the magical stories in their heads into finished manuscript. But Anne Lamott’s account of how, over the course of three years, she completely rewrote what would be her second novel several times, probably deserves a prize for perseverance (or stubbornness). In this podcast we discuss what was wrong with each of those drafts and the techniques she used to fix them. We even try her idea of writing a plot treatment for our own chapters.

Also in this episode, we have an interview with Catherina Hill about how she researched a largely forgotten dark moment of American history that personally affected her family and how she used research for her historical-fiction novel.

Remember, we have a Writers Process meetup every Wednesday. Check us out.