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About Madeline Smoot
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Blog postI read a tweet yesterday where I realized that not everyone entirely understands the purpose (or job) of an editor. Let’s discuss.
An editor is someone who reads an author’s work with a critical eye for the purpose of making meaningful suggestions and comments. They are there to help guide your work into the best story possible. They are experts in their craft from years of working their way through the office from intern on up. Their suggestions are not made on whims but after a thou -
Blog postFor the past decade, I have struggled with all sorts of health issues. Disparate things like a buildup of neurotoxins during a mold exposure to a hormonal imbalance most likely caused by stress (and age) mean that I often have periods (sometimes extended ones) where I can’t get much done.
I’m not alone in this. People with chronic illnesses face this sort of thing all the time. There are the good day and the bad days, and as anyone with something permanent will tell you, the good days -
Blog post
Sadly, the 2018 Winter Olympics have ended—and some how I managed to not see a single moment. Not the historic triple axel or the Norwegian Curling team’s pants during play. Nothing.
But just because Olympic glory is over for the athletes, doesn’t mean it has to be over. Introducing the 2018 Writing Olympics.
Join me as we all compete against ourselves for medals in 5 writing categories: the Writing Biathlon, Synchronized Writing, Outlining, One Page Synopsis, a -
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Blog postI won’t lie. I have started and restarted this post too many times to count. It’s also really long. Approaching 1000 words really long.
Ever since kidlit started imploding this weekend with the reveal of names of sexual harassers, I’ve been trying to figure out what to do. Not say, do. Because this is not the time for idle talk or speculation. It’s a time for action, and I’ve been sitting by for too long.
If you don’t know what I’m referring to, then I’ll give you a moment to -
Blog postIf you’ve seen my Instagram at all in the last month or so, you will have noticed how fond I have become of graphs. I have graphs tracking my daily word counts. I have graphs for projects showing words left until completion. I have graphs of my graphs. (Not really, but I’m a little surprised I don’t.)
Why have I gone so graph happy?
It was a natural outgrowth of my word count tracking.
You see, in an effort to motivate myself, I started keeping a written log of my dail -
Blog postIt’s a new year, and that means new organization. This year, though, I’m going to continue with a system that I started last year that worked well for me: Monthly and Daily To Do Lists.
After trying all sorts of planners, I eventually realized that I had to just make one form myself. I got a super cheap composition book with graph paper on the inside. (Less than $2. I’m not kidding about the super cheap.) I then decide it by months and weeks with the extra pages in the back available -
Blog postWe’re coming upon the end of the year, and in my case, I’m coming upon the end of my WIP. I’m now 2/3 through the novel I started for NaNoWriMo, and I have hit the hump. You know, that slow, excruciating point in your writing where you already have ideas for revisions, but you’re still trying to slog through the initial draft. There are all sorts of names for it, but I call it the Middle of the Novel Blues.
Read Craft books for inspiration.
Sure, you could read any of mine (shamele -
Blog postLast month in my newsletter, I talked about the difference between a character’s wants vs their needs. I also mentioned that there are two types of needs: physical and emotional. I thought we could explore that a little more.
A character’s physical needs are just what they sound like: they physical needs that must be met in order to stay alive. These are obvious things like food, water, shelter, and the less obvious ones like medicine. Whatever your character’s physical need, the key -
Blog postOver the past few weeks, I’ve been experimenting with Short Reads, one of the sections on Kindle. Taking classes and conference speeches and other material, I have been slowly, but surely converting them into articles to publish using KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing). For now, I’ve been making them exclusive to Kindle to take advantage of the marketing tools they have as well as allowing them to be free through Kindle Unlimited.
I’m interested to see how they work out, but in the meanti -
Blog postThe NaNoWriMo Coat of Arms
It’s that time of year again! Time to get ready for that month of frantic writing and nail biting experience known as NANOWRIMO or National Novel Writing Month. For those who don’t know, the premise is pretty simple. On November 1, you start a brand new novel. On November 30, you finish said novel. Simple, right?
Okay, everybody get back up from where you’ve fallen off your chair from laughing so hard.
No, there is nothing simple about writin
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