I am super excited to announce that I will be a faculty member for the Pneuma Creative Writing Retreat this October! If you’ve ever dreamed of working with me in person and picking my brain for three days as we sip wine and gawk at the gorgeous New England trees – this is your chance!…
Have you heard of this fancy MFA creative writing term called profluence? Proflu-whaaaaaat? Yep, it’s a complete mouthful! Profluence is a big scholarly MFA word that I’d never heard of until I was in creative writing school. It’s coined by John Gardner and it refers to the overall connective tissue, flow and energy of your novel,…
You know those scenes that you LOOOOOOOVE, but you feel like you can’t cut? You know the ones. They’re the scenes that turn you into a frothing angry velociraptor when someone suggests you might cut them. The scenes your beta-readers keep mentioning might not be necessary, and you’ve pretty much lost all faith in your beta readers…
Writers are asked for writing advice all the time. They’re asked on panels and interviews and by strangers they’ve hardly met. And you’ve probably heard plenty of stock answers like … Make sure you read as much as you can! Get your butt in your chair and finish your book! Write from your heart. Write…
Welcome to the third installment of my YA Self-Publishing Series. Today, I’m interviewing C.E.Diamond, author of The Lost Legacy series. She’s here to tell us about the research involved when one decides to become a self-published indie author. Additionally, she loves witches (her Lost Legacy series is all about them), and she’ll give us a sneak peek…
The film MOONLIGHT claimed top prizes by winning the Academy Awards for best picture and best screenplay last month. This film is brilliant. And in my opinion, much of that brilliance comes from the fact that it broke so MANY conventional writing “rules” that we’ve been told again and again. It broke those rules –…
Getting up in the morning sucks … …that is, until you make a habit out of it and it turns into the most productive, amazing, and rejuvenating time of your day. What-whaaaat? I know, you’re wondering what kind of crazy early-morning kool-aid I’ve been drinking. It’s true, I get up every morning between 5 and…
I got stuck before I even started. Yup, I was chomping at the bit to dive into my YA fantasy novel The Nevers and … I got blocked on page one. On LINE one! It happens to all of us writers. You know the drill … you sit down in your cozy writing chair with…
There’s a lot of angst in the author community. You know it’s true. We’re nervous about if we’ll get an agent. Or if our book will sell. We’re nervous about critical reviews, and sales numbers, and what our mom will think. We spend a lot of time freaking out about if we’re ever going to really…
The number one thing I learned from screenwriting is story structure. Robert McKee, author of STORY, explains that there are two kinds of talent: story talent and literary talent. Most writers focus on literary talent … which are the words, the phrases, and how you use them. Often, literary talent is what we’re taught in creative…