Fear is something inside all of us. It makes us human. It makes us real and relatable. But, sometimes we don't know what we fear until we face it. I am one of those people who doesn't quite know what I fear. I woke up around 3 am because of an earthquake.… Continue reading Fear
Category: Inspiration
The Inner Child
I was lucky. Growing up, I always knew what I wanted to do with my life. I've been reading since I was three, and I've been addicted to books since. It was only natural for me to go one step further with the one thing I love and become a writer. I started… Continue reading The Inner Child
Music
One of the things I try to enforce as a writer (that I learned from LTUE and that I hope my "A Day in the Life of..." guest series has taught) is that there is no one way to be a writer. Everyone has different writing schedules and different distractions, just like how everyone has… Continue reading Music
Currency in World Building
Last week, Magic Writer shared another post about World Building, this time about currency. I got to preview this post before it was finished, and I gave Elise some tips for it, but she had so much more to say than I even realized went into creating currency for a book. And now I'm… Continue reading Currency in World Building
Titles
Over the past week, I've been brainstorming book titles with some of my writer friends. For me, Powerful came easy. The title was there before I even started writing. But for other books, it's taken quite a bit of time to name. I always give my books a temporary working title, but coming up with… Continue reading Titles
Characters
Why do we like certain characters? What makes us feel like we understand and relate to certain characters more than others? How do we as writers create characters that readers will like? Character development is arguably the most important part of a novel, tied with plot development. It's so important because of… Continue reading Characters
The First Draft
The first draft of a novel is a huge deal. It's a major accomplishment for any writer to achieve. You spend hours and hours plotting and planning and staring at the computer screen in a crazed caffeine induced state. And writing that last sentence is when all your hard work pays off and you're… Continue reading The First Draft
Famous First Lines
The hardest part about writing a book is always the first chapter. We write it over and over again because there's far too much pressure on a single sentence to capture attention, and a couple thousand words to do too many things. It's the readers' first impression of a story, and first impressions are… Continue reading Famous First Lines
Take Care
Today I'm taking a "me day" because I've started to wear down. I was crazy productive last week because I was riding that NaNoWriMo/writing the climax/caffeine high and I was crazy. But what happens when you spend a week staring at a computer screen writing and doing nothing else? You burn out. … Continue reading Take Care
Writing is Hard
Any artist knows that their work is hard. Painting, writing, music, etc. These tasks are so difficult because progress is hard to track. Any designing is done purely in the mind, and sometimes thoughts are too convoluted to sort out and put onto paper. So many people read books and think, "This… Continue reading Writing is Hard