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Writing Skills: Beginner vs. Advanced

Students in a lecture hall with text: Can You Spot the Beginner?

I’ve spoken many times about our learning curve as writers. Not only can it seem endless, but we can also be skilled at one aspect and unskilled in another. So at what point can we stop thinking of ourselves as beginning writers? When will we be “qualified” for the advanced stuff?

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February 25, 2016

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Using Ebooks to Understand Story Structure

Roof structure with text: Ebooks: a Shortcut to Story Structure

If we’ve ever had a friend ramble or go off on tangents when describing a movie, we understand how story structure can help make stories more enjoyable. In other words, good story structure is an important element of good storytelling. Here’s how we can learn to analyze the structure of stories…

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February 11, 2016

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Nourishing Our Creativity to Help Our Writing

A palette of water colors with text: Writing as Art

Writing is an art form, and yet I don’t usually think of myself as an artist. But all types of artistic endeavors have the concept of a muse or a gut feel for when something is working—or not—so we might be able to use that general “artistic muse” concept to help us with our writing, especially when we suffer from writer’s block.

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February 2, 2016

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Author Newsletters: 6 Tips for Smart Strategies

Line up of information dispensers with text: 6 Tips for Author Newsletters

Approximately seventy bajillion new books are released every day (give or take a few bajillion). Our newly released books might have a hard time being noticed, so when we find readers who like our work, we want to make sure they’re still in our audience for our next book. Enter the email newsletter.

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January 14, 2016

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Happy New Year! Let’s Talk (Story) Beginnings

Book open to Chapter 1 with text: 3 Steps to Our Story's Beginning

We’re almost to the new year, so let’s take those thoughts of new beginnings over to our stories. Most writers have probably struggled with a story’s opening, but if we start from the big picture and move to the specific, we might have an easier time finding the right beginning for our story.

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December 31, 2015

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