{"id":1752,"date":"2014-08-01T08:00:18","date_gmt":"2014-08-01T15:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/?p=1752"},"modified":"2014-08-01T08:10:36","modified_gmt":"2014-08-01T15:10:36","slug":"guest-blogger-maria-murnane-reveals-her-secret-to-getting-past-the-sticky-parts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/guest-blogger-maria-murnane-reveals-her-secret-to-getting-past-the-sticky-parts\/","title":{"rendered":"Guest Blogger Maria Murnane reveals her secret to getting past the sticky parts."},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently read a blog post by Maria Murnane<\/a> at She Writes<\/a> and asked Maria if I could share it with you. She graciously said yes.<\/p>\n

Maria writes:<\/p>\n

I’m currently working on my seventh novel, and one of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned about the writing process is when to hit pause on a particular scene\/sentence\/description and move on. If you’re a perfectionist or Type-A personality, that can be hard to do, but it’s extremely important. Trust me.<\/p>\n

I use all caps to keep me focused on progressing the story.<\/em><\/p>\n

When I was writing my first novel, if I wasn’t sure where to take the story next, I would spend countless hours tweaking, editing, refining, and tinkering the words I already had written. Where did that get me? Nowhere! The problem with spending too much time on a particular area of the book is that you aren’t moving the story forward, and\u00a0if you don’t move the story forward, you will never finish the book<\/strong>.<\/em>\u00a0I’m convinced this is why it takes some people 10 years to complete the first draft of a novel. They work so hard making every sentence perfect that it takes forever to get to the finish line.<\/p>\n

A good trick I’ve learned is to use the ALL CAPS function. My current manuscript is filled with notes in ALL CAPS such as:<\/p>\n