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Writing Life

Encouragement for the ups and downs of writing. Sample topics: recovering from writing burnout, protecting your wrists, handling disappointments, celebrating accomplishments, faking it, etc.

The Writing Community: What’s Your Expertise?

Black diamond ski warning for Expert Terrain with text: Are You An Expert?

A writing career often doesn’t pay well, so many of us have day jobs or transitioned to writing after doing something else. To my mind, that’s a good thing. The non-writing experiences we have will enrich our writing and can provide benefits to our writing career as well.

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June 9, 2015

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What Does It Mean to Give Up?

White flag with text: What Does It Mean If We Surrender?

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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May 21, 2015

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Release News! How Do You Deal with “Hurry Up and Wait”?

Man adjusting a watch with text: Ever Have to Hurry Up and Wait?

Many times in our writing career—just as with life in general—we have to hurry up…and then wait. I’m in hurry-up-and-wait mode today. After running around to get everything ready, Treasured Claim is releasing tomorrow, and the next book, Pure Sacrifice, is already available for pre-order. But I hate waiting…

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May 19, 2015

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What Kind of Advice Works for You?

Drawing of happy and sad masks with text: What Advice Do You Need?

There’s no “one right way” in publishing. We can probably all think of ways that don’t work, but there are often several paths that do lead to success. The same applies to encouragement advice. We often see two kinds of encouragement in the writing world: pushy and sympathetic. Either way can work, depending on who we are at this moment in time.

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April 23, 2015

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Are You Drowning in To-Do Lists?

Drawing of rocks and pebbles with text: 4 Tips for Focusing on Your Priorities

We probably all have to-do lists rolling out behind us like Santa Claus’s naughty-or-nice list. Yet if you’re like me, your to-do list never seems to relent. Part of my problem is that I’m not as focused on my priorities as I should be, so let’s talk about 4 things we can do to keep our focus on our priorities.

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April 9, 2015

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Getting Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable

A raccoon looking stuck in a tree with text: Feeling Uncomfortable?

I’m a perfectionist, so I had to get over a lot of my own issues to be able to publish my stories. Many steps along our writing path can make us uncomfortable, as we’re not perfect, not ready. But I never would have been able to publish if I hadn’t pushed myself to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.

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March 12, 2015

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The Perils of a “Dead” Genre

Black and white image of dead tree with text: What Should We Do with a Dead Genre?

It’s been almost a week since my release of Unintended Guardian, and I’ve been getting lots of questions about how I made my decisions for what to do with my books. Let’s start at the beginning: How did I decide on my publishing path? For that, we have to go back to when I first started on my writing career path.

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March 3, 2015

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What Scares You about Writing or Publishing?

Woman looking scared with text: Do You Have Writing or Publishing Fears?

Many large, life-changing events can scare us—even terrify us. We might think, “It’s a good thing I didn’t know how hard it would be, or I might not have done it.” Sometimes writing or publishing can be terrifying, yet we have to move past our fears.

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February 24, 2015

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What’s Influenced Your Writing?

Paper scraps with text: What Experiences Have Influenced Your Writing?

We often talk about how reading is subjective. But we don’t usually talk about how writing is subjective as well. The genres I enjoy writing and the stories I like to tell aren’t the same that others enjoy or like to write. That’s a good thing. If everyone wrote the same genre, readers looking for something new and different would be left out.

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February 10, 2015

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