Piling it on

Jul 18, 2021 | Blog, Method, Writing, Writing Craft

When I plot out a story I am careful not to overwhelm my reader with too many things going on at once. Especially when it comes to bad things happening. Piling one bad thing onto another onto another could not only get to be too much for the reader, but at some point...

Anticipating What’s Going to Happen Next

Jul 11, 2021 | Blog, Method, Writing, Writing Craft

There was a fascinating article by Donald Maass on pacing recently on Writer Unboxed – if you don’t know the website, I highly recommend it, they’ve got really good blog posts. Maass pointed out a couple of really interesting things that got me thinking. First, he...

Are You Strong Enough For This?

Jul 4, 2021 | Blog, Life, Self-publishing, Writing

There is one thing of which every professional author can be certain—writing is going to be a lot harder than they imagined. Being a professional author is not for the faint of heart. There are so many challenges that authors face. First of all, there’s the actual...

How do your characters grow?

Jun 27, 2021 | Blog, Method, WIP, Writing

I’m in the process of plotting my next series of books. As always, I start my plotting with the characters because my books are character-based novels. I have to admit, with this series, the story kernel idea was one of plot and not character. But before I actually...

In Between Books

Jun 20, 2021 | Life, Writing

When you finish writing a book, what do you do? Do you let it sit? Do you get right to work editing it? What about once you’re done with the editing process? Do you publish right away or wait until just the right moment? And what about your next project? When do you...