As we try to meet new authors and expand our literary palate, we will meet folks who write in the same genre as us and those who write something other than what we write. I personally believe that a well written story can (and maybe should) contain elements of multiple genres. A drama should have […]
We all know there are dozens of things we’re supposed to be doing as authors in addition to writing. We talk about it here all the time. One of the important items is building a mailing list. That way, YOU are the source for information on your books and not a website or online retailer […]
(I ran this post last year around this time and it’s worth running again. I’m all about helping people.) Nearly every female writer I’ve become friends with has had the same fight with her man: she spends too much time on the computer. (I don’t think ANY of these dustups came during football season, either. […]
I got featured on Indie Plot Twist! How cool is that? There are lots of ways to find followers and get a little recognition. Indie Plot Twist is all over Twitter because they have an innovative way of incorporating your post with clickable tweets that send out the highlights of your message. I found the […]
At a few key places in The Water Castle, I really built up the tension – and it works. Nail biter stuff. The reader is tense, the character is tense… Hell, I was tense. (I discovered a little trick, that whatever I wanted the reader to feel, I had to make a character feel. We’re […]
Sure, why not? Let’s learn to write a blurb! We all need to do it, and practice makes perfect! But. Let’s write one for a book or movie we all know, to learn the process. Because while we’re all slapping down words in volume to build a story, a blurb is baiting the […]
How about a little holiday spirit for this writing challenge? Use the random number generator below and it will tell you which odd little holiday scene to visualize in your head. Then YOU have to write a caption for the scene. It can be drama or comedy, long or short, uh… fast or slow (I […]
Sometimes a story gets stuck. That sucks, because we’re the ones who drove into the tree, but it happens. (This is not a post about that.) When the story is fine but the writer is stuck, that’s different. That’s a mental thing, or an organization thing, or whatever, but if you are stuck and […]
Pushing that PUBLISH button is a big moment, and your life is different – for better or worse – from that moment on. Writers need to get over the fear of publishing. I was lucky, I started by writing family humor essays and my stuff was out there for a years on Facebook […]
BLACK FRIDAY TWO-SENTENCE STORY CHALLENGE Flash fiction is supposed to be short and fast, and it doesn’t get much faster than two sentences! But it’s a holiday weekend here so I wanted to make this fun. (I saw this on CS Wilde’s blog and LOVED the idea. I spent longer thinking about my two sentence […]
DAN ALATORRE