Open Book | TIPS FOR THE ASPIRING WRITER
Open Book: How to Create An Elevator Pitch for Your Novel
My long time friend asked me what my novel was about. I stammered and blurted out some incoherent description. (Don’t laugh! At least I remembered to mention the protagonist.) This brain freeze, unlike Governer Rick Perry, was not a matter of forgetting, but a matter of not having a succinct pitch scripted. What if that had been a [...]
Open Book: Grammar Rules You Can Break
Did you ever write a sentence and wonder if it was acceptable to end a sentence with a preposition? Or begin a sentence with a conjunction? Or write the way we talk? Me too. Even though I have seen magazines, printed articles, and newspapers write in an informal style, bucking up against Strunk and White’s Elements [...]
10 Ways to Build Your Writer’s Platform
1. Create your website. This is your calling card, your business card. It is evidence to the world that you are committed to writing. Obviously, you do not have to wait until your published to start a website. You should begin NOW. It will take time, especially if you haven’t created one before. A website [...]
Thumbs up for Noah Lukeman’s New e-Newsletter
I like Lukeman’s writing style. It is succinct, content rich, and conversational in tone. When his e-newsletter showed up in my email box, I was excited to see what he had written. If you are trying to break into publishing, Lukeman’s contributions are a must read. He gives insight into why some books bubble up to [...]
Chapter by Chapter
When I first thought about writing a novel, I immediately thought not of character or plot, but how I was going to organize 300 or more pages and move through the scenes and chapters deftly. My first thought is to use notecards. This simple, old-fashioned way of tracking and moving scenes has been updated by [...]
Lucky Bamboo
I took a photo of three bamboo stalks a while back. What interested me was the curling. As I looked at the stalks, I realized that in its simpleness there is much symbolism. Bamboo is a Chinese symbol for longevity. It earned this distinction because if you ever had bamboo grow in your yard and [...]
Embellishing the Simple Storyline
You want to come up with something unique. You want to find a subject or topic that will sustain you through the marathon writing process. And whether you are a first time novelist or written 25 books, you are forever searching for that novel idea that will bubble to the surface and have universal appeal. [...]
Stuck for an Novel Idea? Try this.
If you are a writer…and even if you aren’t a writer, there comes a day when you face a blank piece of paper or the glaring whiteness of a blank computer page. I’m sure you’ve heard the “write what you know about” and still find yourself scratching your head for a topic or theme. Why [...]
The Four P’s for Success
Yesterday I visited a psychic for fun. I do that every so often. I had never been to this particular person before and am always amazed at the range of intuition. As I have mentioned in my blog, I have a problem with staying focused on writing projects. I thought that maybe I had a [...]
Load Times Plugin made by Cheap Web Hosting