Sooner or later every author faces the question: in what genre do you write? It can come from friends and family when they find out you’re a writer, but most often, it seems to come from yourself in the form of, “In what genre should I write?”. It’s largely a personal choice, but before we…
Daily Writing Prompt #3
[et_pb_section admin_label=”section”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text”] Your grandmother dies and leaves you a treasure trove of family photos. While flipping through the albums one night, you come across a picture of her when she was about your age, standing in front of an old car with a group of her friends. Your girlfriend is one of…
I’m 40 Years Old … Is It Too Late to Become an Author?
Substitute any number you want for 40, and this is still a sentiment you hear and read all the time … Teenagers who think they’re too young to be “real” authors Mid-career professionals who think they can’t be writers because they missed out on the requisite education and early job experiences Senior citizens who think…
Is It Possible to Write a Good Novel Without Using an Outline?
Most of us have horrid flashbacks to high school English whenever we hear the term, “outline.” We picture pages and pages of camel-backed indentation spanning multiple alphabets and at least a couple of numeric systems, all punctuated by the red ink of our disapproving teachers. Oh, the horrors of unparallel sentence fragments in the same…
9 Ways to Vanquish Procrastination and Conquer Your Writing Goals
You’re a writer. You also have a job that’s not writing (probably). You have kids, hobbies, volunteer activities, household chores, and on and on and on. In other words, your writing time is extremely limited, and you need to make the most of it. But even though we all recognize this fact, we continue to…
Daily Writing Prompt #2
[et_pb_section admin_label=”section”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text”] You wake up on Halloween morning to a nasty surprise—an early snow has dumped 2 inches of the white stuff. Even nastier? There is a set of footprints leading up your driveway and into your house. You live alone. [/et_pb_text][et_pb_post_nav admin_label=”Post Navigation” in_same_term=”on” hide_prev=”off” hide_next=”off” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid” /][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]
How Many Words Are in a Novel?
If you’re a fiction writer, then sooner or later you’re going to run into the issue of how to classify your work. Is it a short story? A novella? A full-blown novel? And just how many words are in a novel, anyway? That’s a hard question with no clear-cut answer, but if you want a…
Daily Writing Prompt #1
[et_pb_section admin_label=”section”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”left” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid”] Your wife wakes you up in the middle of the night to feed your baby, who is screaming in the next room. You start to get up but then remember that you don’t have any children. [et_bloom_inline optin_id=”optin_8″] [/et_pb_text][et_pb_post_nav admin_label=”Post Navigation” in_same_term=”on” hide_prev=”off” hide_next=”off” use_border_color=”off”…
Use Mini-Milestones to Smash Your Writing Goals – Quick Writing Tip
[et_pb_section admin_label=”section”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text”] To paraphrase the old rub, “How do you write a novel about elephants?”. The answer, of course, is “one word at a time.” That may seem obvious or trite depending on your vantage point, but it holds a truth that too many authors overlook to their detriment. Overwhelmed by Blank…
Make a Promise, Keep a Promise – Quick Writing Tip
[et_pb_section admin_label=”section”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text”] There is little worse in this world than setting a goal that is really meaningful to you … and then blowing off the work required to achieve that goal. You’ve looked yourself in the mirror and said, “This is part of who I am. I must achieve this to fulfill…