What are the hallmarks of an amateur novelist? This is a question I get all the time and, of course, there are many answers: poor pacing, flat dialogue, a lack of believable character development. All of these things are a death kiss for any fiction writer. However, even if all of these elements are in… Continue reading Why Theme MUST be the Foundation of Your Novel by Martin Cavannagh
My God, I am so impatient. Maybe it’s the quest for perfection, never being satisfied. I often interrupt others, hoping they will hurry up and get to their point before I fall asleep. I walk too fast, often cursing the slow walking people in front of me as I make my way through a shopping… Continue reading Patience Will Make You a Better Writer
A high percentage of books the world reads are fictional. Stories created by the imagination with totally made up plots. Characters don’t even need to be human and the six headed animals or monsters can talk in any language of your choosing. There are no limits but the imagination. And the reader is happy with… Continue reading The Fiction of Non-Fiction
Having spent many long, sometimes frustrating, months writing that epic, what happens when it is finally done? You had it professionally edited and proofread—maybe—and now it is time to unleash it on unsuspecting readers. It feels good to have the thing behind you, and you can now put to bed all those characters that haunted… Continue reading How to Get Over Writing Depression
Does your website look a little tired and clunky? It doesn’t dazzle you anymore? Staring at my website one day, I know that feeling. After some procrastination—there are always other things to do—I finally decided something needed to be done. Had I known what I faced, perhaps I should have procrastinated some more. A good… Continue reading “Building Your Website” by Stefan Vucak
Think about how much time you spend on Twitter and what you are hoping to accomplish by using Twitter. One of the most important things that can happen for you is when someone else retweets for you, right? And for you, as you work to increase your network, you are looking for things to retweet… Continue reading Pin a Tweet?
Raymond Esposito kindly gave AHA permission to use his fantastic graph that illustrates the trends and statistics from a Smashwords survey from last year. Enjoy!
For many, publishing a book is already a complicated enough goal. At the same time, another goal to consider is to just break even on the real money you invested in the book. As I prepare to publish my book in April 2014, I am scratching my head at the different royalties offered by different… Continue reading Royalties – JF Garrard Breaks it Down
The first challenge of becoming a writer for me was the whole idea of becoming a writer. That was for clever people, I used to think. Where to begin? With a pen and paper – all right, here goes. Then came the second challenge, what was I going to write about? And the third, where… Continue reading “The Teething Problems of Becoming a Writer” by Laura Graham
“Every writer hopes or boldly assumes that his life is in some sense exemplary, that the particular will turn out to be universal.” ~ Martin Amis “True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have learn’d to dance.” ~ Alexander Pope “Say all you have to say in the… Continue reading Writing Quotes
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