Revising Mundane Content We’re all guilty of it at one time or another. Don’t lie. Even best-selling authors fall victim to mundane content. It sneaks into our writing disguised as description and detail we think will add to our story when, in fact, it bogs it down. “But my descriptions are necessary to make my scenes fuller,” you say. Not all description is necessary and...
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What to Ask a Freelance Editor… Before You Hire Them Hiring the right editor to work on your book can be daunting. How do you know you’ve hired someone who has experience, shares your vision, and is just the right match? Some authors resort to the trial and error method, but that seems like a cumbersome way to get the job done. Many authors get...
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Divas Recommend: 9 Fundamental Fears That Motivate Your Characters by David Wisehart When I found “9 Fundamental Fears that Motivate Your Characters” by David Wishart, I knew I wanted to use it for my Divas Recommend. I’ve keep the site open on my iPad for weeks patiently waiting for my turn. Ha-ha! Wishart’s article discusses the nine fundamental fears we humans develop in our early...
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Author Branding: How to Get Started We’ve all heard the advice to create your brand as an author, but what exactly is author branding? Being an author is so much more than just the books your write. It’s about your image in the real world and online in the cyber world. The Internet has made it possible for people to connect with people around the...
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Commonly Confused Peak, Peek and Pique This group of homophones is a favorite of mine. Mostly because I’m always up for a good laugh and I like editing humor. I’m nerdy like that. So what trips us up about these words besides the fact that two have spellings that are almost identical and their confuses us because it has a Q in it? (Go on,...
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Divas Recommend: 7 Deadly Sins of Worldbuilding by Charlie Jane Anders A few weeks ago I had a discussion with my siblings about the importance of worldbuilding. We discussed many of the mistakes first-time authors make with their worldbuilding and how it can have an adverse effect on the book and derail the entire story. Sometimes worldbuilding takes center stage and eclipses the characters and...
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Calendar of Author Events: September – December 2015 September Sep. 4 – 6, 2015 – AJC Decatur Book Festival in Atlanta, GA. https://www.decaturbookfestival.com/ Sep. 11 – 12, 2015 – Kentucky Women Writers Conference in Lexington, KY. http://womenwriters.as.uky.edu/ Sep. 11 – 13, 2015 – The Imaginarium in Louisville, KY. http://www.entertheimaginarium.com/ Sep. 11 – 13, 2015 – Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Colorado Gold Conference in Westminster, CO....
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Calendar of Author Events: June – August 2015 June June 4 – 7, 2015 – NY Pitch Conference in New York, NY. http://newyorkpitchconference.com/ June 6 – 16, 2015 – Yale Writers’ Conference in New Haven, MA. http://summer.yale.edu/ywc June 10 – 13, 2015 – Writers @ Work in Salt Lake City, UT. http://www.writersatwork.org/wp/ June 11 – 13, 2015 – First Annual Timeless Christian Romance Writers Conference...
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Writing Conferences 2015 – Part 2 As promised, here’s is a list author events for the second half of 2015. I’ve also asked the Divas give me their recommendations for writing conferences and author events in their area for July – December of 2015. Because these articles are so big and have so many outgoing links, I can’t update the calendar in Part 1, so...
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Commonly Confused: Rain, Reign and Rein It’s funny. The more I write about the English language and the more I try to help elementary students whose first language isn’t English, the more I realize how difficult English is. It’s hard enough for native speakers to keep all the rules straight, let alone someone who is trying to learn English. We have an exception to almost...
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