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Managing the Writing Life: Shutting Out the Noise

It's difficult, if not downright impossible, to keep on top of all the information and conversations directed to me in this social networking world. Just opening my email splits my focus in a variety of ways, if I let it. Ah, there's the key. ...

Books for Writers: Platform by Michael Hyatt

In Platform, Get Noticed in a Noisy World Michael Hyatt offers step-by-step advice to help writers create compelling products, compete in a crowded marketplace, avoid obstacles to achieving success, and build a well-constructed platform from the planning stages to inception ...

Janalyn's Guest Posts: Should You Be On Pinterest?

The trouble with being a writer is that you have to write. That would seem desirable, but the writing I’m talking about goes beyond pounding out the next scene in my novel. Since becoming a published novelist, I’ve submitted–at the ...

How Not to Market Your Book

Since officially becoming a debut novelist when DawnSinger (Tales of Faeraven 1) launched last June, I've launched, advertised, tweeted, updated, blogged, spoken, and distributed materials about my book. I've soared to the heights of lists but also, like Pilgrim, sloshed ...

How to Avoid the Second-Book Slump

Writing, like marriage, is an odd mixture of passion and duty. Tweet This. The same writers who speak of “falling in love” with a story complain about “having to” edit it. Some marriages are easierthan others, and that’s also true of ...

Walt Disney in a trailer for the movie, Snow White via http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Walt_Disney_Snow_white_1937_trailer_screenshot_(12).jpg

Writing Tips From a Master: What Walt Disney Knew About Storytelling

"I can never stand still. I must explore and experiment. I am never satisfied with my work. I resent the limitations of my own imagination" ~ Walt Disney. Each morning during my visit to Disneyland when the rope dropped to allow ...

Convert Your Facebook Profile to a Page (A Step-by-Step Guide)

You and Facebook are having issues. It's complicated. The friend requests and event invitations that once charmed you now drive you nuts. What was designed to be useful for an intimate group becomes increasingly unwieldy the more friends you add. ...

10 Most Popular Writing Posts of 2012

Here's a look back at the top 10 most popular posts of 2012 for Live Write Breathe. Design Your Own Author Letterhead to Query Editors and Agents Plotting a Novel in Three Acts Teach Your Writing Voice to Sing Plotting a Novel in Three ...

The Writing Life: Managing Everything Else

I once polled a group of writers asking what frustrates them most in the writing life. The answer wasn’t that hard to guess: finding time to write. But in the responses a common oversight became apparent. It wasn’t the varied ...

2 Keys to Increase Productivity in Your Writing Life

I confess. I love lists. Sometimes I even make lists of lists. I’m drawn to calendars and scheduling planners like a bee to nectar. The daily reminders I email myself keep life humming along. Do I accomplish everything I plan? Not ...

Writing Life: Don't Let the Internet Eat You Alive

Run! There's a beasty that never rests but waits to pounce on you at all hours of the night and day. This man- (and woman-) eater has a taste for flesh and will show no mercy as it rends its victims' lives with disfiguring claw marks. The Internet can eat ...

Books for Writers: Booklife by Jeff Vandermeer

Confused and worn out by the battle to get up to speed with and balance your involvement with social media? Wish you had a techno-savvy publishing insider willing to advise you in establishing yourself as an author in the public eye? You're ...

Time Management for Writers: Making Time to Write

Nature abhors a vacuum, or so they say. I find this to be especially true after I clean a garden bed. Weeds sprout, mature, and seed in record time. If I don’t keep ahead of these intruders, visitors who traverse ...

Too Much To Do? Declutter Your Life

Embracing life with gusto can lead to overload. Ask me. I know. Perhaps it’s the nature of my personality or the fact that I’m a joiner or simply How Life Goes. Whatever the reason, I regularly have to lighten my ...

Does Life Sometimes Imitate Art?

Does life sometimes imitate art? If author Morgan Robertson were alive today, he’d probably voice an opinion. Robertson’s novella, Futility: The Wreck of the Titan, which first appeared in 1898, featured an ocean liner much like the RMS Titanic. Among ...

Plotting a Novel in Three Acts

I’ve trodden the boards most of my life. No, I’m not talking about walking the plank, although it sometimes can feel that way during the infamous period known by theater people as hell week. That’s when troublesome musical passages, elusive ...

Don't Let Your Blog Eat You Alive

What's a writer to do? I returned home from a writers conference reciting, "Must. Start. Blog." After all, it's the thing to do, right? Right. As a writer, I need to network, build a platform, look like I'm doing something... Ahem. ...

Plotting a Novel By the Numbers

Show, don’t tell. Watch your participial phrases. Don’t head hop. Whatever you do, stay within manuscript length recommendations. For a writer scrambling to keep up with all the dos and don’ts, the writing profession can seem full of arbitrary rules. ...

Are You in the Wrong Game?

As a culture, we're beyond busy. We career through space and time, barely tapping the bases in the hope we'll slide into home before the game's over. But even if we reach home, we lose -- if we're in the ...

Plotting a Novel: Scarlett O'Hara and the Inciting Incident

A vase crashes against the mantel. A man, lying down and hidden by the back of the davenport, sits up. The southern belle who threw the vase in a fit of temper blushes, aware he overheard every word of the mortifying scene ...

Why and How to Plan a Writing Retreat

We don’t often talk about it, but becoming a published novelist requires a writer to give up some things. You know, little things like privacy, security, and spare time. And even then, the demands can be great. Deadlines tick by without ...

User-Friendly Graphic Design Software For Writers

Sooner or later most writers stub their proverbial toes on what can seem an overwhelming obstacle: the need for graphic design. Some writers blanch and take the easy way out by having someone else create their website banners, stationery and ...

How to Plot A Novel With A Central Theme and Story Problem

We must have a theme, a goal, a purpose in our lives. If you don't know where you're aiming, you don't have a goal. ~ Mary Kay Ash Substitute the word "books" for "lives" in the above quote. Without a clear ...

7 Steps for Writing a Novel in Scenes

You’ll notice I didn’t include the word “easy” in the title of this post. There are not seven “easy” steps to writing a story in scenes. It takes hard work. I suspect that's why so many writers substitute narrative summary ...

Writing Life: Lessons From Envy

Envy. It crops up with appalling ease. A member of your local writing group signs a multi-book contract. Another lands a dream agent. One friend tells you her latest book needs no substantial edits while you’re drowning in them. A ...

Teach Your Writing Voice to Sing

Writing is a lot like performing music. I know this because I studied vocal music in college and spent a little time running around stages singing in musical theater and opera productions. While I still sing on occasion, the main ...

Conquering the Beast of Time Management

It’s one thing to tell you I’ve conquered time management despite the added responsibilities signing a book contract brings. It’s another to show you how I accomplished this. Whether or not you have your own book on its way to ...

Creating Your Personal Writing Retreat

It’s a commodity in these days of high-speed connections, hurry sickness, and dinner on the run. We seldom think of it, but we need it to thrive. It’s jealously guarded by the few who find even a small piece of ...

Five Ways to Show, Not Tell, in Fiction Writing

http://youtu.be/Edf8WB_v0Yw It's a bit blurry, but I'm pleased with my debut vlog (video blog). I hope you enjoy my first effort. “Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” ~ Anton Chekhov, Russian playwright The ...

Finding Your Writing Voice

Agents complain that their slush piles overflow with variations of the same stories offered over and over, each by a writer without a unique writing voice. Why does this happen? And how can you prevent it from happening to you? Your ...

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