Way back in the beginning of February, I started working through The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. I didn't know what to expect other than becoming "unblocked" (which I didn't think I was) and cultivating a link between my creativity and my spirituality (which I thought I already had).

(Continue reading)

Friday Fiction: women's fiction

Generally, when people think of women's fiction, they think of the stereotypical romance novels with strong, shirtless men and beautiful "heaving bosom" women on the covers. However, romance fiction is simply a sub-genre of the umbrella genre of women's fiction, a genre that is as diverse as the women who read it.

(Continue reading)

The pros and cons of self-publishing

Just as you learned about traditional publishing and its pros and cons, it's important to also look at the pros and cons of self-publishing.

(Continue reading)

Fiction Friday: mystery

Last week, you learned a little about literary fiction in the Fiction Friday series. This week, we learn about mystery. When people think of mystery fiction, the typical image is a detective or crime novel in a "whodunit" scenario. The narrator must solve the puzzle and catch the bad guy. However, there is more to the umbrella term "mystery" than the typical detective story.

(Continue reading)

There will be a coffee house book...someday.

I promise I'm still working on it. And thinking about it. And worrying that it won't work. But still writing on it.

Writing the sections in first-person POV is hard. I knew that going in. And at first, I thought the difficulty would be capturing the differences in the different characters' voices. The trouble has been in using first-person to tell one aspect of a bigger story.

Until recently, I'd been focused on the big picture of the book's story. I knew what I wanted to happen and how. But now, I have to break that story down into the pieces seen by the characters. For example, Vivi is the manager. She's helping plan the anniversary party, so she has a big hand in what's happening. The wanna-be Regular, on the other hand, only knows that the coffee house will close early the night before and open late the day of. Where Vivi's focus is on the details of the planning, the wanna-be Regular's focus is on getting in with the staff so she can be in on the planning.

The idea is, of course, that once you've read all the sections, you can put all the pieces together, and you know what's gone on from conception to execution for the anniversary party.

Easy for you, not so easy for me.

I know I'm not the only one who's hitting complications in the writing world. What are you struggling with right now? What are you doing to try and fix, or work through, it?

However, in a bit of good news, a friend and fellow writer helped me figure out the details of an installation piece at the coffee house titled "Deadly Seven." One of the characters created it as a senior project. That's all I can tell you. You have to wait and read the rest.

What is self-publishing?

If you've looked over the articles on traditional publishing and decided it's not for you, don't worry. Self-publishing may be a good option for your book(s).

(Continue reading)

Social Media and Self-Promotion

Between MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and the many blog sites available, it can be a bit overwhelming to know what's good for you to use as methods of self-promotion and networking. Not only that, but keeping up with everything can be a full time job in itself!

(Continue reading)

Comment Moderation

I didn't want to have to do this on this blog, but I've enabled comment moderation. I'm trying to prevent any more spammy non-English comments from showing up. They're really getting annoying.

Fiction Friday: literary fiction

Literary fiction is a genre of fiction, but literary fiction is not genre fiction.

(Continue reading)

The pros and cons of traditional publishing

As you prepare to seek publication, it's important that you know your options. Last week, you learned about what traditional publishing is. Before you decide whether traditional publishing is for you or not, it's important to look at some of the pros and cons of this form.

(Continue reading)

Fiction Friday: what is genre fiction?

One of the things many writers ask as they write their novels is how to classify them. They want to know if their novel is women's fiction or historical fiction or thriller or fantasy, or exactly where in the bookstore their books would be shelved. In order to better classify your novel, it may help if you have a better understanding of literary genres.

(Continue reading)

Do you need an author website?

Generally, when people want to know more about an author or book, one of the first places they go is their computers. A simple search can give people lots of information on an author, published works, tour schedule, and access to social networking. So if you're trying to build your career as an author, do you need a website?

(Continue reading)

What is traditional publishing?

Traditional publishing is the process most writers go through in order to publish their books. Unfortunately, it's a process that is often misunderstood by new writers. So what happens when you decide you want to write and publish a book?

(Continue reading)