By Kathleen Y’Barbo April 1, 2018 is the book birthday for my swashbuckling historical romance, PIRATE BRIDE. As with traditional births, this book was approximately nine months in the making, give or take. So happy birthday to the book of my heart, the book I whose story people first came to me more than twenty years ago. The book that …
Backups and Miracles
By Rondi Olson My laptop made a grinding noise. I held it up to my co-worker, and asked if she could hear the sound, but before she could answer, the screen went blank. I wasn’t worried, at first. I restarted the computer, hoping that whatever was wrong would fix itself, but instead the grinding resumed, and an error message flashed …
Designing
By Christine Sunderland In the early stages of writing a novel, in the choosing of themes and characters, research must be done to create a grand design. In my novel-in-progress, (working title) Angel Mountain, I have chosen to write about the creation of the world in terms of evolutionary theory and genome mapping. I became intrigued, more and more, with …
Writing for an Audience of One
By Kim Vogel Sawyer If you’re old enough, you’ll probably remember Ricky Nelson crooning, “You see, you can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.” (That’s grammatically incorrect, by the way, but it’s how it was sung, so….) It’s a rather self-serving statement, but there’s some truth to it. There really is no way for any decision to please …
What Can a Virtual Assistant (VA) Do For You?
By Beth K. Vogt I’ve had a virtual assistant (VA) for almost four years now, and I have no intention of going back to the days when I fended for myself as a writer. I could easily answer the question “What can a virtual assistant do for you?” in five words: A VA keeps you sane. But that makes for …
Speaking with an Attitude
By Elizabeth Musser How do we, as authors, handle the speaking opportunities given us? I was recently asked to speak at a women’s luncheon event at a country club. When the gal (I’ll call her Cindy) asked about my availability, I explained very clearly that I would be speaking about my newest novel, told her what my honorarium would be, …
Plotter or Pantster? Yes
By Suzanne Bratcher You’ve heard the debate: when you write, do you plan first or do you write from the seat of your pants? Until last week I was certain I was a plotter. Once I have the germ of an idea, I draw a story arc, divide the arc into three acts, divide each act into scenes, and list …
Take Me Out to the Ballpark
By Tamara D. Fickas I’m not a big sports fan. I don’t really follow any of the big sports teams, although I do sometimes root for a team based on being the underdog, or the favored team, or because I like a player. Despite not being into sports, I do love baseball. I managed the baseball team in high school …
Truth in Fiction
By Melinda Eye Cooper When I was in the sixth grade, I entered an essay contest at school. The theme was What I want to be. I considered the topic for days and tossed around ideas about what to write. For the first time in my life, I asked myself the question, “What do I want to be when I grow …
Let’s Go Back! Flashbacks and Making Them Work
By Cindy Patterson As writers, it’s our job to transport our readers into our stories so deeply, they feel as though they’re no longer reading. This is no easy task. We spend so much time working out our plots, scenes, conflict, and most important, creating our characters, that sometimes we want to spend more time in the history of our …