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Structure Part 6–Getting Primal & Staying Simple

Sorry for the delay in posting. Busier than a one-legged man at a butt-kickin’ contest today. Some cool announcements, though. I am teaching a fun class called ACHOO! The Writer’s Guide to Going Viral and it’s only $25. Also have a really cool Facebook class coming up taught by FB expert Lisa Hall-Wilson, which I …

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ADD, Word Count & Why Dead Bodies are Good for the Living

Today, I want to talk about something that is vital to success. REST. In Western society, we have this warped sense that we need to be productive 24/7. In fact, one of the biggest challenges I face as the Social Media Jedi is that writers believe that, if they are having fun on social media, …

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Selling Our Books on Social Media–Don't Be a Personal Space Invader

For those of you who’ve been following me for a while, you know that my methods are very different, and my advice often runs contrary to what other experts are saying. Well, that’s because I’m right and they’re wrong :D. Joking! Okay, maybe only halfheartedly. There are a handful of common practices encouraged by other …

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Structure Part 5–Keeping Focused & Nailing the Pitch–Understand Your "Seed Idea"

Welcome to the 5th installation on the topic of structure. As an editor for years, I consider myself somewhat of an expert in spotting and fixing structural problems. Sadly, over the course of doing this many years, I have run into far too many novels that had plot problems that ran so deeply there was no …

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Structure Part 4–Testing Your Idea–Is it Strong Enough to Make an Interesting Novel?

I’ve been battling a cold this week, so I am just going to go ahead an post the next lesson on structure and will announce September’s winner on Monday. Trust me, you don’t want me tallying with a NyQuil hangover. Anyway, for the past couple weeks, we have been discussing story structure. I like to …

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