The Agile Writer – Page 8 – Greg Smith: Novelist and Coach

August 5, 2016

Not Just Hump Day

To most people Wednesday equals Hump Day. They have made it halfway through their work week and the weekend is just around the corner. They are one step closer to Friday. But, not Agile Writers members. To us, Wednesdays mean that we can leave our working lives for two hours and enter the world of writing. Which for most is […]

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April 8, 2016

Announcing the Launch of Agile Rewriters

“The only kind of writing is rewriting.” – Ernest Hemingway There’s an exciting new development underway at Agile Writers. Last week our fearless leader, Greg Smith, assembled a group of seven novelists in the process of writing a second, third, fourth or even fifth draft. He dubbed us the Agile Rewriters and bequeathed us Thursday nights, and we were […]

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March 16, 2016

Time to Write

Today’s writers contend with distractions inconceivable to writers of the past. It has almost become pat to discuss the diversions inherent in living in our modern, digitally connected world. But these problems of instant gratification and endless attention shifting are even more lethal to the creative than they are to the average citizen. The writing process requires a lot of […]

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March 3, 2016

Plumbing the Depths of Your Own Life

In a recent chapter of Lawrence Block’s Telling Lies for Fun and Profit he talked about a phenomenon he calls “burning the raft at both ends.” By which he means, consuming one’s own life experiences in the service of one’s writing. According to Block, you can use up your life. You can run out of experiences. You can write through […]

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February 10, 2016

Leaving Space for the Reader

We entered into a productive discussion last week at Agile Writers. It centered on the problems inherent in writing (or acting, performing, producing) for an audience of peers rather than an audience of. . . people. The topic arose because we are making our way through Lawrence Block’s classic on writerly craft, Telling Lies for Fun and Profit. Block’s chapter, […]

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January 25, 2016

The Split Climax

One of the things I teach in my seminar on The Agile Writer Method is that the climax is the seventh and final turning point in the story. There is the classic climax where the hero defeats the villain and solves the main goal of the story. But there other ways to handle a climax. One of them is what I […]

Greg Smith Writing 0 3 min read

December 23, 2015

The Peril of The Pause

The wind barreled down the concrete breezeway and slapped my bare cheek as I walked through the library doors. I held a tottering stack of books flush against my chest, their corners digging into my ribs through my sweater. Inside the library, I had felt calm, as I usually do. The dank, dusty smell and crowded embrace of so many […]

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December 18, 2015

The Night Before Agile Writers

By James Bono Twas the night before Thursday. Throughout Martins’ store Rishonda was browbeating us to write more. “Ten pages are sent every Sunday by peak agile writers. So how was your week?” Elevator pitches graced those who would dare, in hopes that Saint Gregory soon would be there. Each writer was nestled all snug in his seat while visions […]

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December 2, 2015

Authorpreneur

Confession time. Half of this word really scares me. Also, it makes me a little angry, a little frustrated, and a little unsure about my ability to succeed as a writer. Here’s why: I’m not so sure that the skills needed to be a successful writer can cohabitate with the skills necessary to be a great entrepreneur, brander, marketer, social […]

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October 21, 2015

We are Not the Best Judge of Our Own Work

I think there are times when attempting to judge our own work is detrimental to the process. True, we must be discerning. I am in no way advocating that we sit down and type out the first 60,000 words that pop into our heads, self-publish it and wait for the accolades and zillions of dollars to come pouring in. On […]

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