For the past several weeks we have been exploring structure and why it is important. If you haven’t yet read the prior posts, I advise you do because each post builds on the previous lesson. All lessons are geared to making you guys master plotters. Write cleaner and faster. I know a lot of you …
Tag: fear
Dec 08 2010
Blogging Part I–Meet the Bright Idea Fairy, then Shoot Her
Welcome to WANA Wednesday, the day based off my best-selling book We Are Not Alone—The Writer’s Guide to Social Media. I dedicate every Wednesday to teaching you guys how to rock it hard when it comes to social media. Today we are going to discuss blogging. In fact this will be the first in a …
Dec 03 2010
Are You Committed to Your Writing? Or Just "Shacking Up?"
Are you “shacking up” with your dream of writing for a living? Or are you really ready to make a commitment…like for real? In my years of working with writers, I have run across literally hundreds of individuals who claim to want to be best-selling career authors. But, over time, it soon became clear that …
Nov 29 2010
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 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 deep there was no saving the …
Nov 12 2010
The Big Lie–No More Drinking the Publishing Cool-Aid
Writers, I don’t know if you have encountered the Big Lie, but I have. There seems to be this weird belief that great writers are born. We believe that if we made As all through high school and even college that we have this magical gift that just needs to be unleashed. We believe that …