This is a redundant post because if you want to learn how to write a great query: Read Query Shark. Keep reading it. Read it some more. You’re not done yet. I know you’re cheating because you wouldn’t be looking here for a quick fix if you’d really read the query shark archives. But I’ll continue on anyway. I…
One of my critique partners asked me if I’d go to the big RWA (Romance Writers of America) conference in the summer if she went. While it sounded like a lot of fun, I’m tight on travel money and didn’t think it would be possible. I told her I’d go — if I had an agent by then. That…
Ah, the comma. Arch-nemesis of writers. I think I know all the rules on commas until I start writing. Then I start throwing commas around like confetti, and half of them don’t land where they belong. I’m getting better at it, but there are specific instances I always have to stop and look up.
This post was inspired by the brilliant Tara Sim. This is meant to demonstrate that we writers are all weirdos, but maybe my idiosyncrasies will strike a chord with someone else. 1. I can write anywhere, anytime as long as nobody knows I’m writing. If someone in my house sneaks up behind me, I’ll switch my monitor over to…
Brenda Drake, who hosts a number of noteworthy online contests – Pitch Wars being the most noteworthy, has posted an interview with me and my mentor, Jaime Loren. You can read it here.
I’m gonna state right up front that I hesitate to post a blog about how to write a first page. I am certainly NOT a paragon of great writing, and I make ALL the mistakes when I start a new work in progress. I have to let myself make them because words must litter the page before I can…
We’ve all faced the problem of shoving our perfectly polished, honed, and refined novel into the misshapen box known as the pitch (or the query or the god-forsaken synopsis). It’s like trying to turn a diamond back into coal. It seems impossible, and everyone’s first attempts usually end messy and painful. After reading over one hundred pitches for Pitch…
On various blogs across the webosphere, I’ve released my favorite songs of the year for anyone who might want to listen. This year, Ima do it over here on my shiny new writer blog. Usually, I go pretty far into Indie land, but this year’s batch veers scarily close to heavy alt/pop radio rotations, and I’m okay with that….
For the past month, I’ve been dealing with what I dubbed “Schrödinger’s Cancer.” It’s the cancer you both have and do not have in the interim time between finding something suspicious and test results. It’s that window of time that opens with you waiting to see if that unnatural thing goes away, convinced you’re healthy. It’s nothing. It has…
Oh my God, YOU GUYS! I got some kind of an award! Woohoo! Thanks to Nikki Roberti for nominating me on her blog for something called a Liebster award. Now I’d never heard of it. So…. I checked Wikipedia and discovered: The page “Liebster award” does not exist. Cutting edge stuff right here. And if you run Liebster through…
Pitch Wars came along at the perfect time. I was in that sweet spot between thinking there was nothing wrong with my brand new MS and knowing everything was wrong with it. If I’d had any more or any less faith in my novel, I probably wouldn’t have entered it. It’s that delusional place you get to where if…
This post is part of a blog hop for #PitchWars and will be hosted by the fearless C.M. Franklin on her blog. Follow the links at the bottom of this post to visit the other authors in this blog hop. The first time someone asked me why I wrote Calamity, I answered without thinking, “Because it pleased me to…
This is my second year participating in Nanowrimo. I’ve been looking forward to it for months. This year I’m dragging other people kicking and screaming along with me because they’ve all expressed a desire to “have written” which is what Nano gives you. Here are ten reasons why I participate. 1. Excuses. I don’t need an excuse to write,…
Most of us have an aversion to critiquing and being critiqued, and this might cause us to fear finding or becoming a critique partner. I recently shared about being a good critiquer when you CP with someone. Today, I wanted to write about the other half of the equation: the “partner” side of the job. When I started this writing journey,…
O hai! I’ve agreed to be a part of Susan Nystoriak’s NaNo Mini-Series. The first post is all about the writers who have agreed to take part in this interview series. We’ll be sharing our different approaches to NaNo which is coming up fast. If you’ve ever even thought you might want to write a novel, check out nanowrimo.org….
My then eleven-year-old decided to write a novel. It was four pages long and started when her character woke up. For a four-page novel, the action took far too long to get going, but on the other hand, the ghost appeared on page 1. When I read her novel, you know I told her none of these things. When…
13 14 1516 17 18 19 years ago today at 8:48. I woke up feeling sick because I had worked late the night before. Commuting into work at ass-crack a.m. never appealed to me much, but especially not feeling like crap. But I had deadlines and my co-workers would count on me to come in that day to finish…
Bear with me. This might sound like everyone else in the whole authorverse… I started writing novels last year. That’s not to say I started writing last year, but until Nanowrimo, I had never attempted a full-length, plot-arced, voice-dripping, character-driven ms. I finished one (Yay!) and revised that sucker and edited that sucker and didn’t have the first clue…
I’ve just entered Pitch Wars, which anyone visiting this blog probably already knows about. But for those who don’t … It’s a writing contest to end all writing contests. Non-agented authors submit their finished manuscript and query to a select group of “mentors” in the hope that one of them will choose theirs to sculpt and polish between Sept…
Interview by Cindy Donaghue. With a resume of performing for dignataries at the UN, acting in popular TV shows, collaborating with main-stream musicians like Jason Mraz, Gnarls Barkley, Black Eyed Peas, and Coldplay, and even lending his image for an Xbox game, you’d think Keaton Simons would be one of those unapproachable artists who doesn’t need or want to…