I’m broaching a controversial and sticky subject in this blog, and I want you to stick with me. This post isn’t going to be political because my opinions aren’t something I want to breach on this blog. However, it will touch the subject, and I know this is a difficult subject for us to discuss...Read More

A dear friend of mine recently had an experience at a bardic circle (a musical event where folks sit around a campfire and perform to each other) where a group of semi-professionals who didn’t care that it was someone else’s turn decided to shout her down and sing over her. Now, my friend is a wonderful...Read More

Being passionate people, writers are impatient. We want the manuscript written. We want the editing done. We want the book on shelves around the world. We want the movie made. We want, we want, we want! And all this wanting is a good thing. It’s important, and it’s healthy. I’m not going to say otherwise,...Read More

When asked the question of “who do you write for,” many authors respond with writing for themselves. While it’s… almost true, in a way, it doesn’t really work. If you’re writing for yourself, and only yourself, it’s journaling. While journaling is wonderful, helpful, and positive, most of us are hoping to publish our writing, and...Read More

We’ve all felt it. That dreaded, slow, sticky sensation when our inspiration and excitement for a project drains away like the tide, leaving us beached on the unforgiving shores of reality. Yeah, I know, I’m waxing poetic, but we all really do know that feeling. As Jack London infamously said, “You can’t wait for inspiration....Read More

Freelancers, artists, and creatives have this nasty situation where the world thinks we aren’t worth paying because we are “just” artists. I could rant about that for thousands of words, but let’s suffice to say that is utterly and completely absurd. Yes. It’s so absurd it warrants two adverbs. Worse yet, many folks seem to...Read More

If you punch “writing advice” into Google you’ll come back with about a billion results with almost as many opinions. The key here is to research everything and don’t take anything for granted, no matter who it comes fromRead More

We hear this often, but what does it really mean? It certainly doesn’t mean you can’t write thing outside your realm of personal experience (though things you relate to personally will be stronger stories for you).Read More

The best way you can learn about writing and about publishing is accepting that you don’t know everything. There are a lot of moving pieces to the publishing industry. One of the first things we learn when we enter this world is we can’t go it alone, and we don’t know everything.Read More

You’ll hear in writing courses the world over that to-be verbs aren’t your friends while writing. The biggest reasons for this lie in the fact that many to-be verbs are passive in nature. Even if they aren’t passive voice outright, they’ll lead into passive construction which is just as unpleasant. The difference between passive voice...Read More