Writing Advice From A YA Author Powered By Chocolate And Green Tea
One of the best elements that you can add to your book is foreshadowing, which is dropping clues for your readers so they don't get to that awesome plot twist and immediately think, “Where did that come from?” In that situation, the reaction you want is "OMG, yes!" or "I knew it! Mind blown." And …
No writer starts a work in progress with the intention of not taking it all the way. That first sentence is always created with every expectation you'll type "The end", but sometimes it just doesn't happen. Life sidelines you. A shiny new idea comes along. Or this idea is simply the one that gets away. …
Continue reading 4 Signs It’s Time To Dump Your Work In Progress
Almost every step of the writing process has elements that can mess with your head. There are the characters that won't stop talking when you're writing. The endless editing that has you correcting words in your sleep. Writing queries or a one-page synopsis (one page!) and dealing with generic rejections that give no clue about …
Continue reading How To Keep Yourself Sane When Self-Publishing
As has been the basis for my posts since I started this blog in 2017, I write about where I'm at in my writing journey, what I'm learning, and hope that you find it just as helpful. This means today's blog is about what to include in an ARC (advanced reader copy), something I've only …
Any writer who's had to write a query or a synopsis for a submission knows how hard it can be. Trying to boil the essence of your carefully crafted story to a few paragraphs, or a page seems like the hardest thing ever. I'm here to tell you it's not. And that's because there's a …
Happy New Year, everyone! It's time to get out of that magical land between Christmas and New Year when you're full of chocolate and cheese and don't know what day it is. 2020 brings the chance to start afresh, kick off some resolutions, and get back into the writing game. If, like me, you took …
Continue reading Getting Back On The Writing Track After The Holidays
The holidays are a time for relaxing and taking a break, even Stephen King doesn't write on Christmas day! But writers like to make ourselves feel guilty if we aren't penning down words, even when it's time for a well-earned break, so here are some tips for maintaining a creative output during the holidays. Make …
Continue reading Maintaining A Creative Output During The Holidays
I recently read a book I was willing to say was the best book I'd read all year. It had everything I enjoyed in a story: great dialogue, good characters, tension, mystery, and a plot that built. It was such a page-turner that I couldn't put it down, racing through it in two days. Then …
We all know getting into good writing habits will see us complete our manuscripts, but what about those bad writing habits that don't help the process? You know what those habits are. They're the things that stop you from sitting at your keyboard regularly, eat up the precious part of the day set aside for …
