Monday Mentions: Skipping Scenes, Plotting with Maps, & Summer Schedules

I missed my Monday post last week since we were without internet from Monday through Wednesday afternoon. So, some of these posts may be more than a week old.

First is from Jami Gold on When should we skip a scene. I always worry I’ll either include scenes that have no point, even though I like them or leave out important, character development ones.

And one from Roni Loren over on Huffington Post. She wrote about: Are Authors Scared to Write Diverse Books? I think this is one side of it for me. I don’t want to get anything wrong. And also, my hometown is decidedly non-diverse. And I’ve never gone far from that place. So, often my characters come to me from a small town, caucasian, middle class background. But, I need to try to stretch beyond that. And I do have the start of some more diverse characters.

I found this article about planning your novel with google maps interesting. Most of the towns my stories are set in are fictional. But, I try to base them on a real place. In my Flames series, it’s a small city set near Erie, Pa. And even though it’s the area I grew up in and still live, and I’ve gone to Erie plenty of times, I still had to use a map to figure out where certain things were. In my WiP The Choice I have it set in a very small town that is based on my hometown. But, I’ve used maps for it again.

Just this morning I read this post, Adjusting to a Summer Writing Schedule, by Elizabeth Spann Craig. I’ve been thinking about this myself lately. My daughter is done with school this Thursday. Even though I have my son home with me all day now, I know things will change when both of them are here. For one thing, he takes a lot less naps when she’s home. So, I’m going to have to find a way to work around it.

Also read this morning, a post by Ava Jae on why she’s grateful for 7 years of rejections.