You’ve committed two drafts to paper, followed every spellcheck suggestion, and triple-checked to make sure your main character’s (or MC’s) eyes don’t alternate color like a kaleidoscope between chapters. You’ve done all you can…
Writing Lab 101
Writing Horror
We all love to be afraid from time to time. That is why we listen to ghost stories with rapt attention from a very young age. It thrills us, makes us look over our shoulders, but we always come
back for more.
Writing Characters: Know Them Well
The characters of your story moves your story forward. In order to create characters that are real, you must first get to know your own characters well. You need to know them so well that you get inside their heads.
10 Words Editors Hate
10 Words Editors Hate We are talking about literary writing here. In most cases, genre writing tends to be a little different, and some of these words are much more acceptable to editors in genre pieces. These words are not bad words. Please understand. They are words that tend to lean toward cliché in poetry […]
When We Deny Ourselves Words, We are Committing Self-Harm
We have all experienced the dreaded stagnation, avoidance, guilt, panic, and/or anxiety filled [panged!] procrastination of finding that we somehow have gone days, weeks, or even months without completing a book. Further, for the writers out there
Writer’s Block: Breaking the Chains
We’ve all been there. Staring at the blank page wondering what we’re doing, how we got here, and what on earth to do next. For some it may be a few hours, for others it may be years. I was one of the unfortunate ones who let the Block chain me down for four years. […]
What Exactly is Creative Nonfiction?
When I was an undergraduate at UNM (University of New Mexico), I took Intermediate Creative Nonfiction, a class that should have branched out into various forms of nonfiction, but instead stuck solely to memoir and the personal essay. This does not mean I am not in favor of the memoir; it is the genre that holds […]
How to Edit My Work for Submissions
When I started piano lessons, my teacher insisted I do daily exercises to improve speed, dexterity, and precision. I dreaded tedious repetition of drills designed to fine-tune my playing or, as my teacher put it, “to do your best work.”
5 Reasons Why Writers Should Focus on Creativity
What kind of writing do you do on a regular basis? Are you a digital writing professional? A copywriter? An expert who focuses on social media campaigns and content curation?
Going to be a Writer? Here are 5 things you need to love.
There is a tendency on the part of non-writers to romanticize the professional lives of writers. For many young writers starting out, this same romanticism is what drives them to write