Writing Craft Master Lists: Filling in the Blanks—Participle Phrases
Not sure how to use (and not abuse) participle phrases? The more skills we have in our writer toolbox, the better our writing will be.
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Editing Processes: How Do We Improve?
No matter our publishing path, our work always needs to go through an editing process, but when are we ready for editing? How will we know? If we start too soon, we’re likely to struggle and waste time and/or money.
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5 Ways to Recover from Being Stuck — Guest: Lisa Gail Green
Sometime during our writing career, we’re bound to feel stuck. To help us, Lisa Gail Green shares how to recover when we think we’ve reached a dead end.
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Story Tropes: Lazy or Helpful?
Every genre and medium of storytelling uses tropes, and they often have a bad reputation—for good reason. All too frequently, they can indicate lazy storytelling or worldbuilding. But they don’t have to be a bad thing.
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The Ultimate Guide to Pitch Writing
No matter how we publish, we need to introduce our story to potential readers and interest them enough to want to look closer. Whether we’re pitching and querying agents or enticing readers with back-cover blurbs, we need to grab their attention.
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Writing Goals: Discovering What Works for Us
Several debates have come and gone on the publishing landscape. Plotters vs. pantsers, self-published vs. traditionally published, etc. I’ve always said that people should find whatever works for them, but what if we don’t know what that might be?
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Self or Traditional: Choosing Our Publishing Path
Over the years, a sharp division has split the writing community into two camps: traditional publishing and self-publishing. However, the current us-vs.-them attitude doesn’t seem nearly as bad as it used to be. When writers research their options for which path they should take, what advice do they encounter now?
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RWA16: Industry Insights from Data Guy and More
This year at RWA, I was eligible to attend special published-authors-only workshops geared toward those with more experience, and I want to share some of the highlights from those workshops, as I think we can all benefit from many of the insights.
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Decisions, Decisions: What Should We Write Next?
If we have multiple story ideas, how do we decide which one we should write next? We want to pick one that we feel strongly enough about that when the going gets hard—and it will—we won’t be tempted by a different shiny idea. So how can we avoid second guessing ourselves?
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Are You Ready to Be an Entrepreneur? — Guest: Renee Regent
As a modern writer, we’re expected to do so much that we struggle to find time to write—even if we’re traditionally published. No one will ever care about our career as much as we do, so that means we should pay attention to many aspects of entrepreneurship.
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