It’s that time of year again. My six-year blogiversary is coming up on July 12th. And I’m once again amazed by the fact that I’ve been writing this blog for six years. How can something feel like yesterday and forever at the same time?
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Unfortunately, some writers believe that paying for a workshop, class, or conference is necessary to succeed, and some sales pitches play to our fears by implying they can teach us the “secret” to success. But while these resources can help us as writers, they’re not required to succeed.
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Have you seen the ads for James Patterson’s Writing Masterclass? Here’s your chance to win a seat in his online class!
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Some writers can find themselves paralyzed by the thought of needing to get their first draft “right.” That’s crazy-making, however. A draft—a first draft especially—is a tool to help us discover the story we want to tell, the characters we want to meet, and the themes we want to explore. That’s it.
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It’s that time of year again. My five-year blogiversary is coming up on July 12th. And I’m once again amazed by the fact that I’ve been writing this blog for five years. How can something feel like yesterday and forever at the same time?
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Ever heard the advice: “If you can stop writing, you should stop writing”? I’m here to say *pfft* to that. I gave up writing for years, yet I’m now a multi-published author. Choices we made about writing yesterday don’t determine today.
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One of the ways we create compelling writing is by creating a need within our readers to keep turning pages. So a common piece of advice is to create hooks—phrases, sentences, ideas, questions, etc.—to fuel that need within readers. Today, Mary Buckham’s here to touch on the 9 types of hooks and to answer frequent questions about hooks.
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USA Today bestselling author Mary Buckham is back with Part Two of her guest post on writing active settings that keep our story flowing and connect readers to our characters. Today, she’s sharing the second biggest hurdle to writing great descriptions.
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The trick to sharing setting information (which our readers do need) without dragging down the pace is to write active descriptions. Active descriptions let the reader imagine the setting in their mind, keep them anchored in the story, and slip in information so seamlessly that they never realize they’re reading descriptions.
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It’s that time of year again. My four-year blogiversary is coming up on July 12th. And I’m once again amazed by the fact that I’ve been writing this blog for four years. How can something feel like yesterday and forever at the same time? Mostly, I’m amazed I found that […]
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