How to Stalk WriteOnCon Ninja Agents

Please see my 2017 post, which is updated for the new forum platform. Note: I’ve postponed the MMGM I had planned for today due to being lost in the WriteOnCon forums. What’s that, you may ask? Read on. If you write for kids, teens or new adults, you should attend WriteOnCon tomorrow and Wednesday. It’s…

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Before the Draft: Research

It’s always interesting to me to read about other writers’ processes for getting ready to draft. Ever since I participated in NaNoWriMo in 2011, I’m firmly in the fast draft camp. I don’t necessarily finish a draft in a month, but I have set word goals every day, and I don’t revise anything until I’ve…

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Emails, Footnotes and Tweets: When Authors Experiment with Format

I’m always impressed when an author pulls off a unique format. I’ve read quite a few books lately that stray from the standard narrative format and thought I’d share. Maybe they will inspire you to try something new! The journal entry. The journal/diary entry is probably the most common detour I’ve seen from the expected…

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The Power of a Well-Planned Twist

I’ve talked before about how much I love a good twist, and a book I read last week featured one that was so well done I wanted to give the author a slow clap. The few times I even entertained the thought that this twist might come, she cleverly misdirected me, the reader, so that…

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What I’ve Learned in Two Years of Querying

I really hoped I wouldn’t have to write this post, but here we are. It’s officially been two years since I sent my first round of queries. During that time, I’ve queried two manuscripts, one of which underwent a major revision before restarting the querying process. I posted last year on what I’d learned in…

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When Is It Time to Query?

I’ve written posts on when it’s time to revise and when it’s time to wait, but I started this blog after I’d started querying DUET, so I didn’t have a reason to write about when it’s time to query. Until now. Because even though I still have a few DUET submissions out there, it’s time…

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Those Pesky Crutch Words …

I had this whole post written and WordPress deleted it–twice! Thank goodness I discovered you could retrieve a draft, although I’m still having to cut and paste it. Anyway, there’s a lot of advice out there telling you to eliminate words like: just very kind This rule is so ingrained, I don’t have an issue…

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A Moment in THE DEXELON TWINCIDENT

Kip Wilson Rechea tagged me in a snippet-sharing blog hop. You can see the excerpt from her YA futuristic thriller, BRIGHTEST MIDNIGHT, here. Thanks, Kip! I’m going to share a snippet from my work-in-progress, THE DEXELON TWINCIDENT. The rules were: “Search for the words ‘moment,’ ‘forever,’ ‘time,’ or the like in your writing, pick your…

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How Much Honesty Can You Take?

Yesterday agent Mandy Hubbard tweeted: Sometimes, wish I could tell an author: You have talent. But this feels like the book before the 1 you get published. #NobodyWantstoHearThat Well, of course you don’t want to hear that, but maybe you should. Now, if I were just dipping my toes in the querying waters for the…

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A Year of Blogging, Including My Top 10 Posts

So I should have done this post a couple of weeks ago. I started my blog on May 2, 2012, in order to participate in The Writer’s Voice contest. I’d debated for about a year whether to start a blog, mainly because I wasn’t sure what value I could add to the conversations already out…

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Without CPs and Betas, I’d Never Get Past the Slushpile

This morning I finished up revisions from my second round of readers and sent my work-in-progress off to a third round. I’m always amazed at the things I miss when I’m editing my own work, and I came to a definite conclusion. If I didn’t use critique partners and beta readers, my manuscripts would never…

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