Every writer has one—or two—or three. When I first started writing fiction, I was writing blind. I was a trained journalist and understood non-fiction, but writing a novel… Suffice it to say, it presented a number of new challenges. At the time, we were living in Frisco (Colorado), and there were no writers groups, no…
Category: Blog
Phobia noun pho∙bia \ foe-bee-a
Actually, I’m okay with bees but those wasps, yellow jackets, mud daubers—whatever they’re called—freak me out. Speaking of fears, take Steven King—but don’t keep him—that guy writes horrors few humans can possibly survive, let alone think of: Carrie, The Secret Window, The Shining… Now that I think about it, I have an irrational fear of…
WANT vs NEED
Last month we took a step back from Boy meets Girl to focus on some preliminary work. Although you can certainly throw your Hero and Heroine together on the first page, it may be better to show them apart first. Then, when Boy Meets Girl, you’ll have the opportunity for SOMETHING to catch your characters…
Take Two Advice, and Call Me in the Morning: GOLD EDITION
I’ll bet you came back from the RMFW Gold Conference, excited to dive into your current project, filling it with all those things you learned over the weekend. Right up until it came time to actually write. The post-conference blue/block is a very real thing. Trust me, I’m not a doctor. And I don’t play…
Marketing Physics
Back in the dark ages when I took physics, I learned about the six simple machines. When dealing with marketing, I find the lever makes a good analogy. It increases the force applied by a given amount of effort. Rephrased: You don’t have to work as hard to get the same result. Call me lazy,…