Writers Can Feel Accomplished – Even if their book isn’t published.

When does a writer experience a sense of accomplishment? Is it after the book is finished? How about after it’s revised? Certainly not while it’s in the querying stages, those frightful trenches that threaten to bury us. Surely, we can count on feeling accomplished when a publisher agrees to publish it, but that opens a

For Serenity – Final Version

Writer-In-Motion Week 4 – Final Version The fourth week of Writer-In-Motion is about tightening, editing, and sculpting until the word count is within the parameters set forth at the beginning of WIM. This is not my favorite round. It is awful to work so hard to put the words on the page, only to turn

For Serenity

Writer-In-Motion Week 3 – Critique Partner Round This is the third week of Writer-In-Motion, where authors implement the feedback their critique partners have provided. I love working with critique partners because there is literally no way to read your own work without understanding it. There’s no way to become disengaged from the emotional connection to

For Serenity

This is a short story written for the Writer-In-Motion event designed to share the process of writing. This is my first revision. For Serenity   Joyce snapped. For years, she’d watched the government assignments dictate the future. Children two-years-old forced down pathways established by the all-seeing eye of their government. Two. Algorithms chose their future. Not

5 Ways to Give a Positive Critique.

The very nature of a critique is to be critical, yet you should consider it more like the critical eye that sees everything, and not the critical teacher that only points out errors with a red pen. This industry is subjective in every aspect. It is essential that we remember our opinion on any other

Writer-In-Motion Week 1

This is the first week of Writer-in-Motion, where authors write to an image prompt. The 2019 image prompt is the above picture of a woman in trouble holding a flare. Giving Up My Daughter is the short story inspired by this prompt and the current mother of the main character of my work in progress.

CRITIQUE ETIQUETTE

CRITIQUE ETIQUETTE It is so hard to receive feedback. You’ve created this thing from scratch within the bubble of your infinite mind, and it is perfect. You’ve spent every free waking moment, and some sleepless nights, delicately adding layer upon layer intrigue and conflict. You’ve crafted, coddled, and cultivated it with the finesse of a

Building an Author’s Platform

Mastering the Twitterverse – Part Three Recently, I’ve noticed a fall in engagement. People aren’t following me as often. I studied my tweets and campaign and realized a few things I wasn’t maximizing on. First, TIME MATTERS! Don’t just send tweets out there and think it will pay dividends. You need to know when people