afashionablefrown asked you:
MJ, I have finally succumbed to asking you a question. Hear me out. How do you know when you’re ready to begin? I’m scared that I am plotting out too much, but every time I sit down to start my first draft, I realize that there is a vital detail I am missing. [...]

erraticartist asked you:
Dear Aunty MJ, it seems as though there is a certain amount of pressure to edit and rewrite ‘finished’ NaNoWriMo novels, is there anything wrong with just writing for the fun of it?
Dear erraticartist,
Your question fills Auntie MJ with joy and she happily provides the answer: THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT. In [...]

lisapizza asked you:
this is really a question for the end of the month, but now that i have a first draft, how do i edit it? i won nano a couple of years ago but trying to edit the behemoth was so intimidating that i never looked at it again.

If you have reached the end, [...]

butonlyslightly asked you:
Should I worry about the title?
My true love butonlyslightly,
The word worry has two meanings. The first meaning is to think about something in an anxious way. The second is to work at something, to gnaw or pull or tug until it gives way. Auntie MJ suggests that the second meaning is more useful [...]

heidiloveslife asked you:
What do you do when you feel like you don’t have enough life experience to write the story that you want to?
You have asked QUITE a question. This is one of the biggies that you can wrestle with for a long time, and answer in a lot of different ways. That you are [...]

erraticartist asked you:
Dear Aunty MJ, I’m having the OPPOSITE problem that you blogged about a few days ago, in which you talked about finding books that have similar themes to the Novel that is being written right now. I find that I am stealing elements from novels that I really enjoyed in the past, even [...]

boywithbread asked you:
Hello! So here’s my question: What are your thoughts on present tense for a novel (specifically first person/present tense, but also just present tense in general)? A lot of my favorite books are written this way, and I find myself writing in that style as well, but I’ve heard so much flack about [...]