risk

Do You Call Yourself a Writer or an Author?

January 24, 2012 Writing Stuff
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Recently, the Awesome-Dipped-in-Glitter (TM) Kristen Lamb pointed out that “aspiring is for pansies.”  We are not aspiring writers. Aspiring: to have a plan, desire, or hope for something. Writer: a person who writes. If we put those together, that means an aspiring writer is a person who plans, desires, or hopes to write, but doesn’t actually [...]

Tagged as: advice for writers, authors, blogging, branding, Jami Gold, Kristen Lamb, paranormal author, professionalism, risk, self-doubt, self-publishing, website

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How Tightly Do You Control Your Blog?

January 12, 2012 Random Musings
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We’re in the middle of the Pitch Your Shorts pitch session with Entangled Publishing.  If you have a 10-60K word story with strong romantic elements, check out that post for details on how to pitch to six(!) editors. During the pitch session, I’ve had to lock down comments to make sure things run as smoothly as possible. [...]

Tagged as: advice for writers, blogging, branding, Jami Gold, paranormal author, professionalism, risk, website

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How to Keep Readers on Your Side

December 8, 2011 Writing Stuff
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We’re all being told that we need to have a platform, that we need to grow our platform, and that we need to use our platform.  Gah!  Does anyone else want to throttle the word “platform” after hearing it for the fifty-bajillionth time? The word diminishes the meaning of what a platform really is.  Our [...]

Tagged as: advice for writers, blogging, branding, guest blogs, Harry Potter, Jami Gold, paranormal author, risk

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The Insanity Behind the Pressure to Have “Numbers”

October 20, 2011 Writing Stuff
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Confession:  I broke one of the unwritten rules of the Writer Code. I ranted.  In public.  On an agent’s blog. And yet I’m still here to tell to the tale.  In fact, the agent responded to my comment and then—in a show of fantastic grace—emailed me to make sure I didn’t take offense.  We ended [...]

Tagged as: advice for writers, agents, authors, blogging, Jami Gold, Jami is insane, Jami's rants, Kristen Lamb, paranormal author, risk, self-publishing, social media, traditional publishing, Twitter

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How Do You Stretch Yourself?

September 13, 2011 Writing Stuff
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With any job or activity, if we want to get better, we have to stretch ourselves.  Athletes strive to move faster or stronger.  Musicians aim to complete a harder, more intricate piece of music.  And writers… How do writers stretch themselves? We can collect feedback on our writing from beta readers, contest judges, and critique [...]

Tagged as: advice for writers, beta reader, genre, grammar, Jami Gold, Jami is insane, muse, paranormal author, point-of-view, risk, story seed

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What’s the Hardest Scene You’ve Ever Written?

September 1, 2011 Writing Stuff
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(Note: I am not Tawna Fenske, so that title is not a euphemism for anything.  Sorry.  However, this post might include a reference to a shower scene of one woman with two guys.  Or not.) I mentioned last time that one day of the weekend was taken up by writing-related stuff.  What I didn’t mention [...]

Tagged as: advice for writers, feedback, Jami Gold, Jami is insane, listening to characters, muse, paranormal author, plotter vs. pantser, risk, romance novels

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The Green Lantern Movie: How *Not* to Write Characters

July 7, 2011 Writing Stuff
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Last time, I used the Green Lantern movie to illustrate how not to plot a story.  This time, we’re going to look at the Green Lantern characters. As noted before, Green Lantern felt superficial and formulaic.  Sure, it’d be easy to say that it was a comic book movie and therefore lived up to expectations, but [...]

Tagged as: advice for writers, character flaws, emotional heart, Jami Gold, listening to characters, paranormal author, risk, sacrifices, strong characters, tension

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The Green Lantern Movie: How *Not* to Plot a Story

July 5, 2011 Writing Stuff
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I recently saw the Green Lantern movie.  I know, I know.  The reviews were terrible, but I often enjoy turn-brain-off movies.  This fun-but-dumb superhero action flick definitely fit the bill. But the real entertainment came after the movie, as my family and I analyzed why this superhero movie failed compared to other recent titles.  Where did this [...]

Tagged as: advice for writers, antagonist, information dump, Jami Gold, Janice Hardy, page turning stories, paranormal author, risk, story openings, tension

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How Vulnerable is Your Writing?

June 30, 2011 Writing Stuff
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A few weeks ago, we talked about about branding and blogging and how to create connections with others.  People who feel connected to us are more likely to be willing to give our book a try or to help us promote.  Connected readers might become our front lines in our quest for global best-seller domination. [...]

Tagged as: advice for writers, blogging, character flaws, conferences, Jami Gold, listening to characters, paranormal author, risk, RWA, Twitter

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Have You Posted Your Work Online?

June 14, 2011 News
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Some people post their work online all the time.  Photographers have Shutterstock.  Artists have deviantART.  Non-fiction authors often base their books on their blog posts. What about fiction authors?  That’s a little trickier.  We’re not talking about flash fiction, blog hop entries, and the like here.  If we limit the discussion to novels—our babies—it’s harder [...]

Tagged as: blogging, Jami Gold, Jami is insane, Kristen Lamb, listening to characters, paranormal author, professionalism, risk, story openings, The Resurrected, writing contests

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