Surviving and Thriving: Part 1 NaNoWriMoTips

In my post on my planning process for novels I shared how I got ready for National Novel Writing Month. I went through all the steps, and now, each day, I sit at my keyboard and turn over the next in my set of 40 scene cards. If I were on target, I should have …
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Retro Caryn: Writing Erotic Romance

Caryn is down for a bit after some minor surgery. Today we’re running one of her best-loved posts on the trials of writing erotic fiction. We know you’ll love this post and Caryn will be back with us all in no time. When Fifty Shades of Grey crashed into the publishing world, everyone was aghast. On so …
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My 9-Step Planning Process for NaNoWriMo: I’m In. Are You?

I started the registration process for National Novel Writing Month 2014. but I need your help to finish. You see, I have to put in the title of my book. And, well, that’s where you come in. Every year, I post ideas of books I intend to write. Then I let readers pick the one …
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Fiction as Art: Going Back to the Beginning

I reported last week that I’m taking a writing class, billed as “intermediate level” but after two meetings I’ve concluded that most of the participants are newbies. It’s forced me to reflect on how I wound up as a writer: a former science teacher/administrator who became possessed by the sudden and uncontrollable urge to write …
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Could Your Book Make the 10% Mark?

  Love it or hate it, the new Amazon Kindle Unlimited just made it easier for avid readers to sample a huge number of books while paying a fraction of the total cover price. The new program will give subscribers access to over 600,000 titles, many of them Indies, but also some big name authors. …
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Guest Post: SCBWI Conference with Cindy McCraw Dircks

For those of you following the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) events you’ll know they held their big annual New Jersey conference on June 27th – 29th. Since none of the Sisters had the chance to attend we asked Robin’s friend Cindy to guest blog and fill everyone in on the highlights. …
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Use KDP Changes to Help Promote your Children’s Book

If you haven’t already published a juvenile book with Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) you don’t know they announced a big change on June 2.  In a letter to all their children’s book publishers they wrote: “You can now set age and grade categorization refinements to help readers discover your books.” Okay maybe this doesn’t …
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On Being Brave: Or Are We Frozen in Fear?

I haven’t seen the movie, mostly because I don’t have any little children in the house, but the media buzz is touting the amazing and empowering story of Frozen. I’m only paraphrasing what I’ve heard on TV, but it seems like this Disneyesque story doesn’t rely on the usual trope of Prince Charming swooping in …
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Friday Inspiration: The Right to an Education

I’m stepping away from writing craft today in order to discuss the horrid situation in Nigeria. The morning I awoke to the Today Show reporting 234 girls had been abducted from a boarding school in Nigeria, I gasped. Not just at the occurrence of such a despicable act but over the fact that it had …
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Done! We Survived the A-Z Blog Challenge

Phew! We did it! The 2014 A-Z Blog Challenge is completed! What a trip! This was our first year, as we debuted our blog in August. When we started blogging we were incredibly insecure—check out Robin’s first post! What if we write something stupid? What if there’s a typo? A grammar error? But we held …
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