The end of February almost snuck up on me. Here’s what I read and enjoyed this month! Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, by Ashlee Vance. I was already a little obsessed with Teslas, and let me tell you, this book made it worse. Musk, whose ambitions include warming up and colonizing Mars, is
Category: Writing Matters
I love coming up with fiction writing prompts or exercises, and I think this list is particularly good for character development. You learn a lot about someone from how they behave in their most embarrassing moments, and this is a great way to create a sympathetic character. I’m writing these as “you” statements because it’s less clunky that way. And you can use
The “Chosen One” trope refers to a plot in a novel, a movie, or a TV show in which some regular person finds out that s/he, and only s/he, can save the world or carry out some other grand task. Whether their role was foretold by ancient prophecy, determined by their bloodline, or what have you, s/he is destined to be the hero.
All writing genres have their own quirks, and the romance genre probably has more than most. I was thinking about things that a lot of romance writers have in common, and I thought it would be fun to share. If you’re a romance writer, see if any of these sound familiar! 1. You point out that some things are not
One of the things I loved about self-publishing after being traditionally published was the fact that I had control over my own book cover design. I think a lot of indie authors enjoy that! Although I have strong opinions about covers, I’m not a designer. I hired a professional to design my self-published book cover, and I’ll do that again
Hi friends! Late last year, I taught an all-day blogging workshop, and people were especially interested in this particular bit of advice about how to get people to read your blog. Although I don’t usually share blogging tips, I know a lot of my regular readers ae also bloggers, so I thought I’d write a post about it. Some of you
In one of my early blog posts, I shared a playlist for writers working on a high fantasy or a medieval historical novel. I wanted to make another one! The last playlist had a definite European flavor. This one is slightly more multicultural, and longer — a little over two hours of music for writing inspiration. A commenter on this blog, Annabel, suggested some of these.