Writing Process
Book Writing Strategies for Aspiring Authors that Actually Work
20 Writing Strategies Aspiring Authors can Use to Plan, Write, and Finish their First Books An interesting thing happens when I tell people that I’m a writer. Their eyes open wide in surprise, and they usually say one of two things, either, “Oh, that’s so cool. I could never do that,” OR “Oh my gosh,…
Read MoreYou are Your Best Audience
Let’s talk about your audience and WHO you create for. I had a big aha about this a few weeks ago, and it’s an idea I’ve been exploring. It started when I began digging back into my old blog posts and thinking about WHY I’d started my very first original blog which I started in March…
Read MoreYour idea is calling…pick up (or sit down)
This week in a writing circle, one of the topics we were discussing was perfectionism, an issue that most of us (all of us) writers deal with at some point or another. I shared this video of a short story I used to read to my high school creative writing students. It’s one of my favs. This…
Read MoreShould You Listen to Music While Writing?
This past spring, I went to two education conferences where speakers discussed the neuroscience of learning, and they both talked about how our brains are unable to multitask. Doing two things at the same time dramatically impacts our performance. I asked both presenters specifically if we should listen to music while writing, and both gave…
Read MoreBoost Your Creativity: Writing By Hand
‘Tis the holiday season and many of us wish for the latest in technology: a new laptop, a new computer, a new iPad or smartphone. As writers, our lives often revolve around this technology. We can write stories, send them off to writing buddies or post them online, and research on the internet. I’m the…
Read MoreHow to Use Word Clouds to Guide Your Revision
We all tend to have our favorite “go to” words that we like to use, but often, we’re not even aware of them. During the revision process, searching out these words and replacing or deleting them can be a challenge when we’re not even sure what they are. Thankfully, online word cloud programs can help…
Read MoreTen Essential Writing Tools
Writing a story, poem, or a novel is a major undertaking. It would be lovely to just sit down at my laptop or in a cozy chair with a pen, a notebook, and a cup of coffee as words easily flowed from my fingers to the page. Unfortunately, writing has rarely happened that way, except…
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