This is K.M. Island and you are listening to the 391 episode of the Helping Writers Become Authors Podcast. I love every part of the writing process, the undeluded joy of the conception stage in which a story is fresh

and perfect in my imagination, the boundless creativity and discovery of the outlining process.

And yes, even the logical precision of the revision stage.

But there is something undeniably special about the first draft stage, the writing stage. denial of my

the first draft stage, the writing stage.

As I'm now about a month and an eighth of the way into the first draft of my portal fantasy

sequel Dreambreaker, I'm enjoying every minute of of my

portal fantasy sequel Dreambreaker, I'm enjoying every minute of rediscovering my characters

through the narrative adventure of bringing them back to life on the page.

This is also probably the scariest part of the process since every word is a delicate balance between this totally works and this totally doesn't.

But that breathless recklessness of living every day on the edge, part of the fun, right?

The latest post on my blog is four reasons you should outline your settings. Figuring out how to outline your

settings will not only help you write better plots, themes, and characters, but also

to research and draft better as well. To read the post, visit

Helping Writers Become Authors.com. And now I hope you enjoyed this week's

podcast entitled How to Calculate your book's length

before writing.

Story structure is all about timing.

It's about making sure your rhythm and piecing a line for maximum

impact, both in keeping readers glued to the page and in resonating emotionally.

The reason this timing works is that it is largely

instinctive for both writers and readers. When I first started learning about

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