Anne R. Allen's Blog... with Ruth Harris
Writing about writing. Mostly.
by Ruth Harris A term used in scoring tennis, “unforced errors” are not caused by the actions of the player’s opponent, but they’re the responsibility of the player him/herself. S/he is caught wrong-footed, out of balance, unable to return the serve, incapable of making the winning shot. The concept of unforced errors can also be […]
Why procrastination feels so awful…and proven techniques to get you on the path to productivity. by Ruth Harris We really, really want to write our book/next chapter/next scene, but we don’t. Instead, we Organize our sock drawer. Search for the missing sock. It must be somewhere. The washing machine? The dryer? Under the bed? Under the dog’s […]
Secrets are the engine that keep a story moving forward. by Ruth Harris Shhh! Secrets. Everyone has them. Every book must have at least one because secrets are the jet-powered engine that propels fiction forward. Ever notice how many blurbs in the daily BookBub email include the word secret? Secrets provide motivation, plot, character, even a setting (a […]
Writing rules, rejection & why to forget them and have some holiday fun! Ruth Harris joined this blog five and a half years ago with a wildly popular blogpost on rejection. Because she worked as editor at a couple of Big Five Houses as well as being a New York Times bestselling author, she knows […]
Slang, jargon, insider lingo and the perfect word make dialogue authentic and put your dancers en pointe. by Ruth Harris 1. A few words about words: Big words and little words. Everyday words and words for special occasions. Polite words and the other kind. The right words, well considered and well chosen, can take a […]
First drafts can be like mazes. The way through is never a straight line. by Ruth Harris A first draft is a maze you create that you have to find your way out of. Like a maze, the first draft doesn’t proceed in a straight line from start to finish, from beginning to end. In […]
The First Chapter is the toughest! by Ruth Harris Someone waves a gun in the first sentence. In the second sentence, Jim (or is it Jill?) is walking his (or is it her?) dog in the rain. In the third paragraph, the dog gets loose, runs into the middle of a movie set where the […]
9 Ways Editors Can Make You Look Good…and 7 Ways They Can Make You Miserable by Ruth Harris As a former editor, I’m biased but, as a writer, I’ve learned that for me (and for just about every writer I know), editing is the most productive and transformative part of writing a book. Whether […]
by Ruth Harris You’re swamped and there are alligators in that swamp. They have sharp teeth and they bite. Their names are Stress, Clutter, Distraction, Disorganization, and Interruption. You’ve got a book to write, a cover to create, tweets to tweet, promos to set up, blurbs to polish, and pins to Pin. There’s metadata, […]
by Ruth Harris Writing a novel based on the lives of real people is much more than simply recounting their story—even if it’s a whizz-bang, humdinger of a story. The challenge is turning real people and real events into fiction. Having no guidelines at the time I wrote Decades, I figured it out as I […]
This week Ruth Harris gives us some powerful reasons to be happy about the ongoing changes in the publishing business. “What?” sez you. “But we see such woeful lamentation and wringing of hands over the demise of the book industry.” It’s true about the laments. Scott Turow, bestselling author and president of the Author’s Guild […]
by Ruth Harris A lot of people start writing because they’ve got a real-life story to tell—something that happened in their own lives or the lives of friends or family members they think would make a great book. Sometimes these stories work well as memoirs, but, for a lot of very good reasons, a […]
