I spent the month of June in Ireland, at the end of which I attended the 2016 Dublin Writers Conference, put on by Laurence O’Brien and the crew at booksgosocial.com. It was a lovely three days’ worth of inspiring and informative sessions put on by successful writers, instructors and publishers. I’ll be sharing some of the writing tips I learned there (and at this month’s RWA Convention in San Diego) in the next few blog posts. The first batch is from Conor Kostick, an author and ... VIEW POST
Five Ways Novelists Are Just Like Poets
A very good friend from my years in northern California is the poet Lauren Scott. (lscotthoughts.com). We are both writers, but while she writes pieces with minimal words, I write full-length novels. Not much overlap, right? Wrong. The truth is, long-form writers and poets have quite a bit in common: We both love words. I mean love them. I know that even though she may write a first draft intuitively, Lauren considers every single word that goes into every single poem she writes. ... VIEW POST
Yes, You Still Need an Editor … and here are five reasons why
[portions of this post were originally published as a guest blog for donnacookauthor.com in 2014. Check out Donna’s award-winning fantasy novel, The Gift of the Phoenix http://donnacookauthor.com/book/gift-of-the-phoenix/ ] I had just finished the manuscript for book number four. After going over it several times, I was feeling pretty darn good about my work. My best one yet, I thought. I’ve got this novel-writing thing down. I turned it over to my editor, thinking she’d probably ... VIEW POST
Get Your Alligator On … and Put Your Readers on Edge
Our annual summer bocce league is almost underway. Over two dozen teams, made up of four players each (plus alternates), meet at a local park to play bocce every Wednesday evening. Over the course of three months we battle it out to see who will be crowned the League champions and get to take home the so-cheesy-they’re-cool gold medals. It’s tons of fun. This year, with a slightly different group of team members, we decided a new team name was in order. Normally teams call themselves some ... VIEW POST
How to Keep Readers From Uttering Those Four Dreaded Words …
[NOTE: I submit this blog post as a writer, a reader, and a regular, everyday person. When I use the word ‘we,’ I’m referring to the collective, as in all writers, all readers or all citizens.] In the real world, where what happens to us via laws and public policy really matters, we seem to be okay with the fact that those we hire (read: “elect”) to represent us in government, are not straight with us. Basically, they lie. Even as candidates for office they lie, either directly or by ... VIEW POST
How to Immerse Readers in a Foreign Language ….
... even if they don't understand a word of it on page one. Adoro l’Italia. I love the food, the people, the architecture, the sound of the language—you name it. So I set my latest romantic suspense novel, The Lair, in Verona, a beautiful, historic city located on the Adige River in the Veneto region of Italy. La campagna intorno a Verona è molto bella! There are hundreds of gorgeous locales in Italy, but you can’t go wrong with the area around Verona; it’s very beautiful.. There, in the ... VIEW POST
