Pema Donyo's Blog

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My creative writing class mainly left me with embarrassment about how many times I use commas, capitalization, and italics. But it also left me with a serious love of short stories. I read some amazing stories in myclass beforewe started workshopping our own. Most of usspend the majority of our energy focusing onnovels. Yet gaining exposure to short stories made me realize how much the underrated medium offers to both readers and writers alike.

A Writer’s Perspective

Shorter pieces give you...

I finally had the chance to readOn Writingby Stephen King and Ihighlyrecommend it. King’s memoir has plenty of hilarious anecdotes from his life, and his book is also full of wisdom about the craft. I pieced together four points which stuck with me in particular:

“If you write … someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that’s all.” King feels he wasted time being “ashamed” of what he wrote, and he thinks this feeling happens to many writers. Bottom line: write what you want. There...

Less than a year ago, I published a post about writing podcasts(all of which I still listen to a year later). I thought I’d adda follow-up to that post with three new writing podcasts that have my attention. They’re a mix of inspiration and invaluable industry knowledge.

Kobo Writing Life – You may know Kobo because it’s a book retailer, but the company’s also started a podcast which features great interviews with successful authors and industry professionals. It’s always interesting to comp...

In junior high, I thought it would be a great idea to read Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. I’m not sure why, because the text went way over my head at the time. I think I set it down halfway through and picked up Ella Enchanted instead (still a great book, just not quite the same).

But as we all try to do with classics from time to time, I picked it up recently and read it again. This time, I couldn’t help notice the great observations Woolf makes about the craft of writing. Two of them stay...

One of my favorite scenes to write in any novel are the ones heavy in dialogue.What’s said is just as important as what’s left unsaid. Tension builds as voices rise. A relationship alters from a single beat of silence. There’s endless possibilities to create an additional layer of complexity to any story throughspeech.

How can we improve such an important part of our story? I’ve included belowsome tips I’ve collected in the past year about how to craftrealistic and engaging dialogue, and hop...

I’ve noticed a lot of great posts surface online recently about dealing with burnout, such as “5 Ways to Recover After a Writer’s Burnout” by Nichole Severn at She’s Novel. Everyone can start to feel overworked and simply overwhelmed after a while. And if you’re anything like me,your past few weekshave become nonstop working (and writing) day in and day outwithout pausing to take a moment for inspiration.But everyone needs motivation – even the hardest work ethic needs a push every now and t...

I’ve had an incredible, adventurous, and exhausting time this past month exploringSouth Korea and Hong Kong. (Shout-out to every single cityscape in Seoul:the views were gorgeous.) To be honest, I haven’t done as much writingas I planned to accomplish during this trip. But there was potential writing inspiration in every photo I took, awareness of other customs I want to include in future works, and a general boost to my summer writing now that I’ve returned home.

Whether you’re flying halfw...

It’s been a year since I published The Innocent Assassins, and almost a year since I publishedOne Last Letter.Even within the past year, I’ve noticed my writing improve. I sat down at my computer the other day to read a few old manuscripts I typed up (even pre-TIA) and I couldn’t help but cringe at some of the common writing mistakes I used to make. The following list of writing mistakes are ones I’m determined to avoid in future writing, and ones I wish I’d read about in the past!

(1) Adver...

These are not only some of my favorite films about writers and writing, they’re also some of the best films for any movie junkie! As summer rolls around and you might need a writing break, I highly recommend watching these three.

Midnight in Paris

“No subject is terrible if the story is true, if the prose is clean and honest, and if it affirms courage and grace under pressure.”

Why this movie? It’s always fun to recognize all the Jazz Age writers such as Hemingway and Fitzgerald, though f...

I’m typing this post after I’ve finished my last final during finals week – and what a relief it is for summer to finally be here! Sophomore year has definitely had its ups and downs. It’s crazy that I’m already halfway done with college, but the end of this year made me realize how much the past two years have taught me aboutboth the writing process and how to approach publishing.

1) Failure is inevitable.

Just like good reviews and bad reviews, you’ll have amazing wonderful friends and the...