I’m borrowing inspiration today from one of my clients. As one year draws to a close and another is peeking over the horizon, she was compelled to consider, “What’s next?”
Rather than merely wonder, she pulled together a plan to …
Small Changes
Don’t small changes sound like they should naturally connect to small impact? Listed here are ten small changes with surprisingly potent impact on both nonfiction and fiction.
AND
And is a useful word. It can, however, become as unsightly …
The Role of Disappointment
blogger: Cynthia Ruchti
It may seem counterintuitive to consider the priceless role of disappointment, or that disappointment could bear any positive role, much less priceless. But many veteran authors–none of whom (NONE) have escaped disappointment–attest that lessons learned at the …
Conquer Dialogue Punctuation
I really wanted to title this “Conquer Dialogue Punctuation, PLEASE!” but thought it might be a bit much. It’s not easy. Let’s all admit that. No one is born knowing how. And writers have all kinds of excuses for struggling …
What to Leave Out
Are you writing a book proposal? Have you included everything an agent or editor might need? Great. Have you gone through to make sure you have left out the parts an editor or agent won’t want or need to see?…
When Life Gets in the Way
I posted the basic concept of this article a few years ago. In revisiting it, I found it at least as true now as it was then, if not more so. You may have observed something similar.
Life gets in …
Writer Hacks
If you want to write faster, or with more emotion on the page, or more compellingly, or without losing track of who’s who, or losing your mind, you may need a writer hack.
A quick online search will reveal hacks …
Five Ways to Wrangle Dialect
I almost stopped reading the book that eventually opened my eyes to the power of inspirational fiction and set me on a path to author and agent. Almost set the book aside after a few pages.
Why? Because the dialect …
What Washed Ashore in the Storm
I’m married to a man who once despised brainstorming. He calls himself a non-writer. I disagree, but that’s a story for another time. Somehow, he’d become convinced that brainstorm was a word on a par with earthquake or tsunami or …
While You Wait
Blogger: Cynthia Ruchti
What’s waiting got to do with writing? Sure, the two words share many of the same letters, but writing is an action verb and waiting isn’t. Right?
Writing and waiting have a lot in common. Few beginning …