Join us January 21, 2023 at 11 in person for

Maria Grace

presenting

Writing by the Milestones

Traditionally, authors have divided themselves into two camps: those who outline and plan their works before they write, knowing exactly what is going to happen before they begin and those who sit down with joyful abandon and write without a plan–by the seat of their pants, as it were.

I’ve always admired the planners, aspired to be one. And I’ve tried, oh how I’ve tired. But somewhere along the way, some unruly character gets hold of my pen and runs amok. My outline in shambles, I spend the next 60 or 70K words chasing down that character and feeling very guilty about my lack of authorial discipline.

After chasing enough wayward characters, I had to find a middle ground between plotting and ‘pantsing’ (oh ow I hate that term! It was something the mean girls did to you in gym class…).

Blending an understanding of story structure, creating an in-real-time outline, and ‘cycling’ back through chapters as they were written, gave me a way to find the story milestones to navigate my way through a plot when the characters are dragging me along for the ride.

Join me for a chat about Writing by the Milestones, navigating your story while the characters lead the way.

About the Author

Six time BRAG Medallion Honoree, #1 Best-selling Historical Fantasy author Maria Grace has her PhD in Educational Psychology and is a 16-year veteran of the university classroom where she taught courses in human growth and development, learning, test development and counseling. None of which have anything to do with her undergraduate studies in economics/sociology/managerial studies/behavior sciences. She pretends to be a mild-mannered writer/cat-lady, but most of her vacations require helmets and waivers or historical costumes, usually not at the same time.

She writes gaslamp fantasy, historical romance and non-fiction to help justify her research addiction.