On Hard-Passing the Hoax
By Christine Carron
In college, I applied to be a Resident Assistant (RA). I had to participate in a panel interview—me facing off against three senior RAs. During the interview, we were discussing how much I enjoy dancing. One of the interviewers said, “I can’t dance. I have...
On Supercharging Your Chapters
By Christine Carron
Many years ago, I attended a session on revision during Grubstreet’s annual Muse and the Marketplace conference led by Ann Hood. A tip I learned in that session remains one of the most practical writing tips I’ve ever received. It was all about what causes flat...
On Directed Reverie, Stress, and Protecting Your Writerly Headspace
By Christine Carron
The other day, I came across a phrase that I adore: directed reverie. Officially, it’s a therapy technique to help someone release intense emotions. But those two words together struck me as a perfect description of the headspace that helps us writers create...
On Finding Your Writerly Bee Space
By Christine Carron
Bee space. A distance of three-eighths of an inch, and the amount of space honeybees will leave open in a hive. More than that and they span it with honeycomb. Less than that and they plug the empty space with propolis. It’s sort of like the bee equivalent of...
On Writer’s Block and Going Full Munificent
By Christine Carron
Today, I looked up writer’s block and found advice proclaiming ten, fifteen, twenty-four, even twenty-seven surefire ways to crush(!), beat(!), pulverize(!), kick-in-the-ass(!) writing block forever! (!!!) (!!!!!!) (!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Such violent verbs. Such exclamation...
On Revision, Sculpture, and Pliable Stone
By Christine Carron
I’m close to finishing a third revision of a middle grade novel. The first two revisions fell into place with an almost unreal ease and with each, and I had a visceral experience of both the story getting stronger and my craft skills sharpening. Sweet!
Then I got to...
On the (Real) Purpose of a Query Letter
By Christine Carron
Like old-school record albums, there are two sides to the writing adventure: the A-side and the B-side. The A-side, the Artistic side, is the work we writers do to craft a story that we hope will gobsmack our readers. Often, the A-side is the juice, the special sauce, the ...
On Solving Story Pickles
By Christine Carron
The past fwe weeks we have explored Whole Brain Thinking, identifying different ways you might use it and layering in deeper meaning and understanding of the model each week. For our final post in this first-ever Goodjelly cycle focused on Whole Brain Thinking,...
On the Sweetening Power of Meaning
By Christine Carron
Continuing our Whole Brain Thinking series, today we will explore one of the most powerful applications of the model: helping you to situationally shift into less preferred modes of thinking, i.e., helping you do things that you don’t like doing. An application...
On Going Generative
By Christine Carron
Today is the midpoint of our Whole Brain adventure on the blog. Sweet!
Two weeks ago, we introduced the Herrmann Whole Brain Model. Last week, we analyzed the Plotter versus Pantser dynamic from a Whole Brain perspective. With just those two reference points, you may be...
The Goodjelly Moves
Recent Posts