There's a mental shift for writers when they start calling themselves an author of a book. Many writers seem to find some magic in the term, some kind of promise in the word. If you are among the group of authors with only one published book, there's good news. That's all it takes to call [...]
Random Writer Tools: Fashion in Historical Fiction Writers of historical fiction: rejoice! As a writer, you never know what kind of random tools that you find online will come in handy, and this article from the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art ("the Met") is one such example! A team of researchers painstakingly reviewed fashion [...]
Semicolons: Who Needs 'Em? Oh! Semicolons. I, like many other editors, love them. But if you're a writer who finds the semicolon *the worst, * you have options available to you. One of those options is that you don't have to use any semicolons at all if you don't want to. I won't pressure you. But if [...]
Everyone comes to writing with a different background. Different instructors. Different books we've read over the years that influence us. Different advice we've been given and rules we've been told. But when it comes to writing for yourself as a self-published author or prepping a manuscript for traditional publication, you may need to go against [...]
The Outcome Can Terrorize You If there's a thousand ways to do something, there's a thousand ways to do it right. And a thousand ways to muck it up. And the truth is -- you'll never find the writing process that works for you, without stumbling through a few of those. In On Writing Well, by William [...]
There’s a bunch of apps out there to help you be a better writer. If you’re struggling with writer’s block, you may want to try a few to see what works for you. May I recommend Oblique Strategies? It’s available for both Android (here) and Apple (here) This sleek, straightforward app is designed to give […]
It's a difficult thing, a solid thing, a hard thing: to let go. To release. But, decisions change the world.
Congratulations! You've finished the initial drafts of your manuscript. Maybe you even went through developmental edits or critique partners already. Now, you think you're ready for content editing or line editing. Not so fast. You want everything to be as clean as possible—you want to save yourself the time and money of making editors do extra [...]
In my years as a developmental editor, ghostwriter, and book reviewer, I've come across a few tricks to breaking down a good story, and a few tips for assembling one. Maybe you've been told before how to outline your novel or nonfiction book, but hopefully this blog will have some new information for you. In [...]
Ad copy and poetry are about emotion. What's the result? The old tricks work for both.