Writer’s Resolutions: Ways to Form Habit

Writer’s Resolutions: Ways to Form Habit

If you’re like me, you are probably setting goals for the new year—promises to exercise daily or eat right. It’s the season for starting over and re-committing to good habits. There’s nothing quite like feeling like you have a clean slate and move forward freely into a new and improved you. But while you’re picking good habits, don’t forget your writing.

Writing is a habit like any other. It takes discipline to stick to it, especially when the self-doubt creeps in or the rejections start piling up. The more you can do to create a habit of writing, the better you will be able to handle the vagaries of the craft.

My New Year’s Wish for You

My New Year’s Wish for You

There are so many articles and blogs out there telling writers how to be writers and offering advice and tips; I should know because I write one. But my New Year’s wish to all of you is to step away from that stuff for a moment and offer something else: Trust.

This year, I hope you learn to trust your own counsel, your inner ear and your ideas.

Giving Yourself a Clean Slate for the New Year

Giving Yourself a Clean Slate for the New Year

The holiday season is a time for joy and forgiveness, which includes forgiving yourself for all those creative projects languishing in the back of your closet or in forgotten files on your computer. All those stories awaiting an ending. All those tiny scraps of paper sporting lines of dialogue. All those frustrated characters without an ending.

‘Tis the Season: Writer Gifts

‘Tis the Season: Writer Gifts

I love the end of the year: the holidays, the decorations, the end of year reviews. It’s the perfect culmination of a year well spent. It’s also when I bury myself in holiday classics and stories. Somehow the dark nights and colder temps make reading better. I mean who can argue with reading a book before the fire, a cup of tea in hand and a cat curled up in your lap?

Go for the Feels—Emotions Are Key to Story

Go for the Feels—Emotions Are Key to Story

I remember the first time I performed a monologue in drama class and got some of my fellow students to cry. It was a heady thing. Such power. Such exhilaration making someone else feel the way I wanted them to feel.

Getting to those feelings are the goal of every writer. We want our readers to feel the thrill of the chase, the fear of a killer, and the joy of falling in love.

Top 40 Writing Tips

Top 40 Writing Tips

Being a writer requires a strong foundation in many things. It’s more than banging out a few lines and hitting post. Like any profession, there are basics every writer needs to master. Grammar is your foundation, but there’s so much more.

Story doesn’t rely on how to use a semicolon or the definition of a dangling participial phrase. It needs understanding and ideas that come from a broader education and perspective.

Time for Thanks

Time for Thanks

‘Tis the season for school assignments asking students what they are thankful for in their life. My son came home with just such an assignment and it made me think about what I was thankful for this year. It wasn’t hard to come up with an answer. It’s been a good year.

Tracking Submissions—The Administrative Side of Writing

Tracking Submissions—The Administrative Side of Writing

Like most writers, I love the research and writing parts of the job, but don’t care for the administrative tasks that come with the gig—doing the taxes, accounting, legal and tracking everything. It’s easy to let those things slide and I did when I first started out, until I learned better.

It is easier than you think to misplace vital information, lose track of invoices and payments, and forget to track what you send out into the publishing world. The only way to stay sane and solvent is to track everything. It will help your sanity too.

NaNoWriMo: What You Will Learn

NaNoWriMo: What You Will Learn

Last week, I shared my reasons for joining the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) Challenge to write a 50k book in 30 days. But I have more to say about the benefits of taking on such a large writing challenge.

Anytime you can set aside a chunk of time to write is a good thing, but dedicating an entire month to a huge goal allows you to be heroic about it.

NaNoWriMo: What You Will Learn

NaNoWriMo: Why It’s a Good Idea

One month. Fifty thousand words. No problem, right? Right. Even with a major holiday involving family, stress, traveling and other distractions, you can do this. It’s November. So it’s time for NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month challenge of writing a 50k word book in the month of November.

Finding Time to Write

Finding Time to Write

Time is the number one excuse given for not writing. People love excuses. They never end. I have a job. I have a family. I have a life. Where could they possibly find time to write a book? Where indeed?