Learning from Failure

Learning from Failure

We all fail. We all try new things and have them just not work out the way you expected. But that doesn’t mean that you throw away what you did and never look at it again. You need to stop, take a good hard look at what you did and why it didn’t work and see what you...
Writing romance

Writing romance

As a writer of romance, I realized I haven’t written about the fundamentals of writing romance here in a very, very long time! Whether you write romance or another genre, it’s very likely that you’re going to have at least some romance in your story. The thing is, we...
Omniscient POV, part 2

Omniscient POV, part 2

Why does Omniscient POV work sometimes? Last week I wrote a post on how you really should not write in omniscient POV. I was reading a Regency-set fantasy romance and the omniscient POV kept me at arm’s length from the characters, so I really couldn’t fall in love...
Omniscient POV

Omniscient POV

I’ve been reading a book that was highly recommended—and not by just anybody, but everybody! All the blogs I read that recommend books recommended this book. Even NPR recommended the book! It’s a Regency-set fantasy which is one of my absolute favorite genres, and one...
Sustaining Your Author Career

Sustaining Your Author Career

It is the oddest fact that as an author, you cannot count on your book earnings for your livelihood. Most authors (me included) don’t earn enough on their book sales to pay the rent, let alone, utilities, groceries, and all the other expenses of every day life. We all...
Exploring the Third Rail

Exploring the Third Rail

I was preparing for a talk I’m going to be giving this weekend to the Maryland Romance Writers when I was reminded of Lisa Cron’s concept of the Third Rail. This is an easy way to think about Story, Plot, Character development, and GMC all wrapped up into one very...