When I finally finished my first draft of my novel, it felt like a huge accomplishment. 100,000 words written in seven months with at least four hours per day devoted to the task. I had proved to myself that I could do it – I had beaten back the critical voice in my thoughts (fear of failure), the ridiculous doubt of whether this is what I wanted to devote my life to (fear of success),…
Jennifer Lawrence recently penned a piece titled, “Why Do I Make Less Than My Male Co-Stars?” She talked about capitulating early in negotiations for American Hustle for fear of seeming “difficult or spoiled,” but when the Sony hack came to light, she learned that she earned millions less than her male costars. Read the comments and you’ll see people arguing about whether she is on the same level as the other male costars, but even Jeremy Renner…
Today is one of those “Have an existential crisis before breakfast days” #lifeofa20something #adulthood — Anastasia Taber (@anastasiataber) August 11, 2015 Before I get to dating apps (Return of the Dating Dalai? Just as soon as I finish up Aziz Ansari’s Modern Romance), I thought a particularly relevant topic would be existential crises. As far as I know, you aren’t doing life right if you manage to bypass these. So if you’re currently experiencing one, perhaps I…
Received great feedback @SCWriters and had the awesome opportunity to pitch to an agent. Still buzzing from everything I learned! #amwriting — Anastasia Taber (@anastasiataber) October 2, 2015 This past weekend I did a really cool thing and attended the Southern California Writers’ Conference-LA in Irvine, CA – about 60 miles south of me off the 405. The conference took place at the Wyndham Hotel across from the John Wayne Airport in Orange County. The…
In today’s blog post, I am going to quote both Edward Snowden and Donald Trump in relation to China, and it’s going to make sense. This is the first installment of “Critical” Reading – a biweekly post in which I analyze and critique an article, a movie, an Internet comment, or something Donald Trump said. If you remember from the first Republican debate this year: Donald Trump stated, “This country is in big trouble. We…
Last week I mentioned feeling bummed about winning an award that was not as high as I had hoped it would be. Visualizing success is important because it primes your brain to take steps towards enacting that success. But it also makes you vulnerable. It opens you up to possible disappointment, and from such disappointment exists a narrow bridge that swings precariously over the murky waters of apathy. I have fallen in a few times,…
I am writing this 65 minutes after the email was sent and 10 minutes after I read it to find out that I received another Honorable Mention from the Writers of the Future contest. Writers of the Future is the largest and highest paying free entry science fiction contest and has involved several prominent science fiction authors (among them are Orson Scott Card and Dave Wolverton/Farland). The contest offers unpublished writers an amazing opportunity to have…
Hi all – I have revamped my website in an attempt to motivate myself to write more blog posts and have a more consistent web presence (shout out to my brother Ted for his excellent tech support). Along with this revamping came another smaller metaphysical revamping (i.e. existential crisis) of who I would strive to be online and what I would want to say. Many websites and online personas come up with a super laser focus…
This is an ode to all of my fellow novelists out there who get to answer this question almost daily, as well as to the people who ask this question. “Writing a novel is difficult” is the understatement of the year. Each genre has a different word count range. Young Adult (YA) runs from 55,000 – 70,000 words. For adult novels, between 80,000 and 90,000 is a good range. For science fiction/fantasy, over 100,000 words…
When I tell people I wrote a novel, the most common responses I receive fall into two categories: 1) I could never do that and 2) I’ve wanted to do that (but haven’t). When I hear that someone has always wanted to write, but hasn’t, my first thought is “Well, what is stopping you?” Some people like the idea of writing but not the practice of it. These people are focused on the ends rather…