Every writer has his or her own needs. It could be a quiet place to write or music to inspire the words. It could be a pen and paper or a computer, or even a tape recorder. It could be a jar of M & M’s or a jug of …
Most authors have a list of their favorite books about the writing process that they’d recommend to others. Here’s my top seven: 1. Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook by Donald Maass — via hands-on exercises and examples from successful novels, this workbook teaches authors how to “develop and strengthen aspects …
Guest Blogger: Dakota Banks Browsers in a bookstore scan the shelves, eyes moving rapidly from book to book. If your books are spine-out rather than face-out, you have only your title and your name to get the buyer to pick up your book. If your book is face-out, you have …
Guest Blogger: Marie Lamba Fiction writers can create a story out of anything, and every character they put down on paper can have their own conflict, their own storyline. This is both a blessing and a curse. When writing my new paranormal novel DRAWN, I knew I was creating what, …
Guest Blogger: Daniel Palmer When it comes to writing novels, beginnings can be difficult. A blank page at first appears liberating, but it can soon become utterly paralyzing. As writers, we’ve been taught to grab the reader’s attention in the first few pages—the first sentence if possible—and then hold it …
Guest Blogger: Kyle Mills After fifteen years making my living as a novelist, I recently had a couple of new and strange experiences. I was happily plugging away at my manuscript for THE IMMORTALISTS when I got a call from the Robert Ludlum estate asking if I’d be interested in …
Guest Blogger: Toni L.P. Kelner Charlaine Harris and I have co-edited four urban fantasy anthologies together—HOME IMPROVEMENT: UNDEAD EDITION, the most recent, just came out this week. But I have to be honest—when Charlaine and I started working on our first anthology, we really weren’t that sure what anthologists did. …
Guest Blogger: Nathan Bransford One of the more common questions I receive in interviews and the like is this one: You have a blog, you were in the business by virtue of being a former literary agent, why didn’t you self-publish? Why didn’t you do it on your own? Couldn’t …
Guest Blogger: James Scott Bell Somewhere inside me lurks the shadow of Erle Stanley Gardner. Gardner, of course, wrote the Perry Mason series. He was at one time, right up into the 1960s, the world’s best-selling writer. It was a testimony to two things. First, his dogged determination. He wrote …
Guest Blogger: Lincoln Crisler I play G.I. Joe for a living and write scary stuff in my spare time. Janice has been good enough to let me climb aboard and share a bit of my magic with you and suggested my editing techniques as a possible topic of interest. This …
