The Stages Of A Book’s Life:

  Sparkly New Idea: It’s shiny, it’s distracting, it might be the best thing you’ve ever thought of! Baby Panda Idea: A little awkward, very fragile, it might die if someone says a harsh word. “I’m not writing this, just thinking about it.”: You’re doing a little research, flirting with…

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WRITER CRAFT WEDNESDAY: The Essential Editing Checklist

Congratulations on having a finished draft of your manuscript. The next step is editing the manuscript to the best of your abilities before you hand it off to a crit partner or editor. This is the essential checklist to get you started. Search for an unpack the following words: Thinks, Knows,…

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Finding Your Strengths

All writers are not created equal. Some are gifted at world building, others excel at pacing, some write witty dialog without breaking a sweat (looking at you, Whedon). Whatever your skill, you should identify it and make the most of it? Why? Let’s pretend that your greatest strength is dialog….

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Writing Realistic Romantic Relationships

There are a couple of hard and fast rules for writing romance genre that you need to keep in mind if you want to write category Romance. Anything market as Romance must have a Happily Ever After/Happy For Now ending. Anything less than that, and you will eaten alive by…

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Stages of Love: Commitment and Happily Ever After

  Welcome to the beautiful, danger fraught world of Commitment. The Basics Commitment is a place few authors dare to tread. Committed couples? Where’s the romance in that? (Confession: I totally think you can write a great romance with married characters and this is why EVEN VILLAINS FALL IN LOVE…

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Stages of Love – Attraction

Yesterday we talked about the science behind Lust. The mad, crazy, passionate time when you are truly obsessed with another sentient being, or at least obsessed with getting in their pants and scoring a DNA exchange. After a short period of time the original chemical lust wears off. Reality sets…

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