As I sit down to write, I’m remembering that game we used to play as kids—the one where someone starts by saying, “I’m going on a trip and in my bag I packed…” You sit in a circle, and the starter names one item with each player listing previous items in turn and then adding…
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Ocean Liner or Toy Boat?
Your book launch is like a ship christening, right? Pomp, circumstance. The whole bit. You invite as many people as you know, including every stranger you encounter in the weeks leading up. You bash yourself a little bit for not doing a better job of keeping your email lists tightly organized over the years. And,…
Curing White Room Syndrome: How to Ground Your Reader
This is my second year serving as a judge for the Colorado Gold contest (which I highly recommend, for a number of reasons—but that’s a story for another blog post). After judging a dozen or so entries, I noticed I was making the same comment on almost every single manuscript: I didn’t feel grounded enough. Lack…
I Won!
I did it! I’m the best. Problem is, I won the Writing Procrastination Award, hands down. I’ve managed to find about four hundred different reasons not to write – at least not what I was supposed to. Some of my excuses are good ones – I submitted to the RMFW Anthology, I submitted to Gold,…
Writers: Learn to Love Revision
When you look at some of the writing advice out here in the great etheric wonder that is the internet, what you’ll see is a lot of the same information repeated over and over. This is because writing isn’t a science, it’s a very subjective process which looks similar to lots of different people, but…