Oct 17 2013
We’re discussing ways to fuel the muse before NaNo. Yesterday, we discussed movies and how to use them, and I will delve a tad further with that today. One of the major reasons many writers fail to complete the story is there isn’t a single CORE story problem in need of resolution. The story dies because it lacks a beating heart and a skeleton. Stories with no hearts and skeletons are primordial adverb ooze and not good for much other than scaring small children.
Oct 16 2013
Great movies have great dialogue. Study it. How do characters talk? When I get submissions, one of the major problems I see is in dialogue. Coaching the reader, brain-holding, and people simply talking in ways that are unrealistic. For instance, most of us, when having a conversation, don’t sit and call each other by name.
Oct 15 2013
Too many writers fail to finish NaNo because they haven’t fueled up properly. If one studies any endurance athlete, what do they do before an Iron Man or the Tour de France? They EAT. A LOT. Endurance athletes know they need the extra weight because it isn’t uncommon for participants to lose as much as twenty pounds by race end. Yet, how many of us go into writing a book with a malnourished, anorexic muse?
Oct 11 2013
NaNo, in my opinion, is bootcamp to train up professionals. Granted, no one is shooting live rounds at us while we belly-crawl through mud, BUT we do have to put words on a page even when the toddler has to go to the potty every thirty seconds. Many of us are also working a day job and we have family drama shooting rounds at us from all directions.
Oct 10 2013
There are few things more defeating that to a) start off hot and heavy only to write ourselves into a corner or b) invest a month of suffering and sleep-deprivation only to end up with a derailed mess that can never be repaired short of tearing it down to the foundation and starting over.
What is a brand? A platform? Why do we need one? How do we get one? Better still how can we create a brand with the power of driving book sales and still have time left to do THE most important part of our job? Writing more books.
This book demystifies branding and social media and harnesses the same passion and imagination we authors use to write books, then uses that to locate and cultivate a devoted fan base. The methods taught in this book can weather any technological upheaval, and is virtually fad-proof. The new cool social site might change, but your platform will remain.
More info →
