Hey friends! Today, I’m going to be discussing a sensitive subject. As an author on a limited income who wants to re-release a couple of books, and as a former executive editor and creative director who’s worked with professional designers on dozens of covers, I have a lot of thoughts on this. Do indie authors need to hire professional
Category: Writing Matters
As a book editor, I’m always asking writers to add some Christmas scents to Christmas stories… The scents of the season are such a great way to evoke a happy or nostalgic mood. Smells from our past, and especially Christmas scents, trigger memories so strongly that they can make us feel as though we’ve been transported back in time.
“Can you start a novel with dialogue?” is a question I’ve been asked three times in the past month, so I thought I’d blog about it! There are many bits of popular advice floating around the writing community, and “never start a novel with a line of dialogue” is one of them. Of course, when it comes to writing, when
There are several great cozy mystery publishers with open submissions. In fact, you can submit to a few of the biggest cozy mystery publishers without an agent! Now, there are a lot of great reasons to have an agent. I’m certainly grateful for mine. And many cozy authors do very well with the self-publishing route! But because everyone’s path is
This list of character defects is something I developed for writers, although of course, it could have lots of different uses! After I posted the List of 125 Talents and Skills, I’ve had several requests for a list of character flaws. Not all of these “character flaws” are moral failings! Some of them are just challenges that could hold characters
Did you know there are scientific reasons why reading is important? There are! But for a while, a busy life and the endless distractions of the internet led me away from my reading habit. It was such a simple, pure pleasure to get back into it this year, so I thought I’d write about the benefits of reading every