Writer’s block, that dreaded situation many a writer encounters when the words just won’t flow. The ideas are bad. The scenes you’re forcing out dead end into nothingness or tedium. You’re totally uninspired. And the longer it lasts, the worse you feel. And the worse you feel the harder it gets to bust through the… Read more »
What’s a Love Story Without a Few Bumps Along the Road? When last we left you, we were extolling the virtues of our critique group. Nothing has changed on that front, but it’s not the whole picture. We have our dysfunctions and challenges. Several challenges were logistics out of our control: managing four time zones;… Read more »
You’ve finished your manuscript, congratulations! Now what? After all these months or years spent on your book, you’re fairly close to the material and it can be hard to objectively assess your own work. So, it’s time for others’ feedback. TIME FOR FEEDBACK Feedback will help you make the book the best it can be…. Read more »
Writing through thick and thin is not easy. Every writer’s life has thin stretches which overwhelm the importance of writing. Illness, death of a loved one, financial disaster, and now in climate change, weather related disasters: all overwhelm. All terrible, all distracting. Life has thick stretches too, joyous events such as marriage, childbirth, raising happy… Read more »
You wrote an amazing romance novel. Your book cover is dy-no-mite, and your back cover blurb is jump-up-and-slap-your-Pappy enticing! You hooked up with IngramSpark to give your book global distribution, plus, it’s available on Amazon. But you have near ZERO sales. What went wrong? I’m guessing you failed to promote your book. Promoting your book… Read more »
I’m in a few writers’ groups on Facebook, and at least once a day, I see someone posting that they need an editor. Social media is a powerful tool for connecting writers with qualified editors. And I’m totally an advocate for using it—correctly. Unfortunately, most of the posts asking for editors get bombarded with responses… Read more »
Happy Sunday, Leisure Learners!! While school is literally always open here at DIY MFA, September has a special feel for passionate learners like ourselves. That sparkle filled with notebooks and pens and elevated thoughts enters the ether as we put aside the beachy reads and fall in love once again with our most substantial literary… Read more »
What Is A Short Story? For the most part, a short story is most often defined by word count (1,000 – 7,500 words) and the complexity of the story. It’s easiest to define a short story by comparing it to longer forms of fiction, such as novels. Short stories generally have a fewer number of… Read more »
One of the definite downsides to living in the boonies is the wildlife. I mean, it’s great and all, but not when it’s totally batty, winging through my house emitting sonic shrieks. Yep. We’ve got actual, real-life bats, and despite having an exterminator tamp down every possible access point, somehow it’s a common occurrence. My… Read more »
Regardless of how good your story idea is, how great your writing is, or how powerful your manuscript is, you must get past the gatekeepers of traditional publishing before an agent will read a single page of your manuscript… and hopefully fall in love with your story. Two of those gatekeepers are the query and… Read more »
