Does A Pen Name Protect An Author?
Does the pen name Richard Bauchman mean anything to you? How about Robert Galbraith? Okay, here’s a third: Rosamond Smith. The true names of the authors above are Stephen King, JK Rowling, and Joyce Carol Oates. Unlike most new authors, these famous writers didn’t write under a pen name because they were afraid of getting […]
Could A Writing Getaway Improve Your Focus?
A writing getaway can inspire you to write your novel or finish it. I plan a getaway when I’m doing my final edits and don’t want a lot of distractions. You know the kind of distractions I mean. People hoping you’ll put a meal on the table table. Laundry in the dryer. Weeds in the […]
Book Launch Jitters
The “Book Launch Jitters” hit me big time this morning. My wonderful friends, Sapna Gupta and Steve Hillegeist, offered to host a book launch event to celebrate publication of Bonds of Love & Blood. The book made its official debut a couple of months ago, but scheduling an actual party proved complicated. If it is […]
Setting In Fiction – A Real Life Lesson | Marylee MacDonald
Setting in fiction is inextricably bound up with character. On a cold winter day I learned this important lesson about the “relatedness” of character and setting from a young Navaho. Creighton Begay lived with his uncle in the most inaccessible part of Canyon de Chelly. Each fall he and his uncle brought in supplies by […]
Tension Skyrockets When You Tweak the Setting
Use setting to heighten tension in a story. Put a character in a place she or he doesn’t feel physically or psychologically comfortable, and you immediately inject tension into the scenes. Will she or won’t she figure out how to cope? In my story “Oregano,” Janice Dawkins comes in at the end of a long […]
Notebooks: The One Item Every Writer Needs
Writing notebooks from other creative people can inspire us to keep track of our own creative thoughts. On the tab called Writing Notebooks, I lay out the general idea of keeping a writing notebook, but I want to go into a little more detail here. That’s because it’s so important for writers at any stage […]
Are You Ready for Your First Book Festival?
Follow my blog with Bloglovin Your book is out. Now, you have a chance to sell directly to readers. One of the best places to do that is a book festival. The Payson Book Festival in Payson, AZ provided an opportunity for me to see how other writers sold their books. Next time I try […]
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