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Exploiting Our Brand: Is There a “Right” Way?

Giant can of Coke for a Coke machine

Our brand is the impression others have of us.  So we all have a brand, whether we know it or not.  Hopefully, we’re building a brand that reflects who we really are, in a way that shows us at our best (however we each define “best”). Once we have a […]

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March 29, 2012

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What If Our Story Idea Has Already Been Done?

Computer screen duplicating image into infinity

In my last post about Google search terms, I mentioned that we sometimes have lots of content around a search’s keywords and yet have never answered the question directly.  In that case, Google just gave us an idea for a blog post.  *smile* One search term that led people to my blog this […]

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March 22, 2012

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What Writing Skill Do You Suck At?

School paper with a failing grade of "F"

That’s right.  I’m asking you to expose your biggest weakness.  *locks the door so no one can escape*  *evil grin* We all have weaknesses.  I’m one of the biggest perfectionists around, but that doesn’t prevent me from having oodles of imperfections.  It’s only by knowing where we need more work […]

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December 1, 2011

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Story Climax: The Whole Point — Guest: Victoria Mixon

Picture of Victoria Mixon

I’m excited to share today’s guest post by editor A. Victoria Mixon with everyone.  Her new book The Art & Craft of Story: 2nd Practitioner’s Manual recently came out and is a great addition to our writing craft library. In fact, her blog tour posts have been excerpts from this […]

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November 15, 2011

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What Makes a Character Unlikable?

Frowning

Believe it or not, I sometimes actually follow my own advice.  *smile*  Recently, I helped score a few contest entries, just like I recommend in my post about why all writers should volunteer to judge contests. One of the entries was—I’m afraid there’s no nice way to say this—dreadful.  The […]

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June 21, 2011

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What Makes You Decide to Buy a Book?

Paint chip samples

My to-be-read pile is scary.  Seriously scary.  Like I-might-need-to-check-into-a-program-soon scary. In the past year, I’ve accumulated over 100 print books.  And just since Christmas, when I received my Kindle, I’ve downloaded about 20…er, maybe 30…hmm, possibly more…Kindle books. Honestly, most of those books I got for free, either from giveaways […]

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June 16, 2011

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Do Stories Need a Theme?

Disney's California Adventure theme park

Earlier this week, Julie Musil had a great post about how to create story endings that resonate.  I almost wrote an epic comment to her post, but decided to save my wordiness for here.  And I get to use one of my vacation pictures—Disney’s California Adventure theme park, get it? […]

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May 26, 2011

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