Straight talk from the sisters about blood, sweat and ink
September is always a busy month for me, and this year is no exception. Today I’m doing a super fast and fun YouTube post. I got the idea from a guest post I did last week for Comparative Geeks. For those of you that don’t know, YouTube is positively bursting with great stuff for writers. …
Continue reading “Watch Writers Talk Writing”
Happy Archive Revive Day! It’s always helpful to refresh what we know about writing by digging up past posts and updating the information a bit, so here we go… Originally posted on Oct. 7, 2013. Updated Sept. 21, 2015 I learned this method of outlining at Ryerson University. My screenwriting professor called it a Step Outline. …
Continue reading “Outlining – Method 2: Active Beats (aka “Show Don’t Tell”)”
If we were having coffee, I might actually be drinking coffee instead of tea because I need the extra boost after a hectic week! You sip your hot beverage of choice and look at me quizzically. What happened? You thought I was pretty much done the video game script and I’d be focusing on my …
Continue reading “Weekend Coffee Share – The Month of New Beginnings”
Are you ready for disaster to hit your family? Most people aren’t. I live in California, a place blessed with world-class beaches and a climate that lets us enjoy them almost year-round. Plus we have rugged mountains and huge tracks of still wild landscape. It’s been the home state of renowned writers and the setting …
Continue reading “Bugout Tips for Authors”
September is always a time for self-reflection. In a way, the start of the school year makes it feel like the end of the year, though not quite. I find myself thinking of the goals and deadlines I set for 2015. Back in January I wrote a post called The 7 Deadly Do’s and Don’ts …
Continue reading “Deadlines: Helpful or Harmful?”
Join us in welcoming guest blogger, Hannah Givens. We met Hannah through another mutual blogger friend over a year ago and we fell in love with her super intelligent and pop culture rich blog,Things Matter. We asked her here today to talk about an important and seldom addressed topic: how to write sensitive and realistic …
Continue reading “How to Write LGBT+ Characters”
For some reason, the term beta reader confuses a lot of writers. They are not sure what they are, or why they need them. Even experienced writers often don’t know how to use these readers effectively to improve their work. For a well-constructed book, beta readers are the last stop before the proof editor. And …
Continue reading “Beta Readers: Who, What, Where, Why & How”
One of the benefits of being a freelance writer is making my own schedule, and having the flexibility to change that schedule if I want to. For instance, I am not a morning person, and in fact joked that I’m part vampire in this post here because I write best after sunset and terribly at sunrise. Luckily, …
Continue reading “5 Excuses to Protect Your Writing Time”
It makes sense that when your book comes out, you turn to your writer pals for a jump-start on those much-needed reviews. Except a few months later you notice those friend reviews on Amazon are gone, along with most of your other good reviews. And those were from people you’ve never even heard of. Worse …
Continue reading “Reviewing a Friend’s Book on Amazon?”
Since I’ve begun listening to audiobooks, I’ve noticed that not all books convert well to the audible format. So I started this little series: Audiobook Pitfalls. The sale of audiobooks is on the rise, and most new releases (not just bestsellers) are now made into audiobooks as well as e-books and print books, so it’s …
Continue reading “Audiobook Pitfall: Scene Breaks”