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 …
Guest Blogger: Anne Greenwood Brown I love writing in the first person point of view. Somehow, telling the story how one character perceives it helps me channel that character’s emotions and capture a unique voice. I think first person works particularly well with YA fiction, where the reader wants to …
Guest Blogger: Jenny Milchman As I write this, a journey of thirteen years is going to come to an end, and another trip is about to start. It took me eleven years to find a publisher for my debut novel, and twenty-one months after that to ready the book for …
Guest Blogger: Alma Katsu Even though my first novel, THE TAKER, wasn’t published until last year, I’ve been writing on and off my entire life. However, my career in intelligence (yes, I worked for CIA) made it hard to pursue publication and I stopped writing for a long time. Then …
Guest Blogger: Martha Brockenbrough When I was growing up, my mom would let us know when—in her view—we’d had too much fun. My brothers and sisters and I jokingly called it TMF or “exceeding the fun quotient.” Mom used to feel the TV for telltale signs of warmth when she …
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: D. L Wilson A thriller novel must be exciting, a real page turner, a book that readers just can’t put down. A successful thriller must start with a bang, build excitement, create tension, and finish with a bigger bang. After writing a university textbook and a cookbook to …
Guest Blogger: Alexander Gordon Smith In five days I head off to the States again for a book tour. It’s so exciting!! I’m in Seattle, San Francisco, Philadelphia and New York, which are four places I have always wanted to visit. I know it’s going to be an amazing, if …
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 …
