For Writers

Writing tips, tricks, helps, and support

Motivation Why it’s a good idea to write every day Staying strong when it gets hard Comparing weaknesses to strengths When you’ve lost your writing mojo Things successful people do Hope and perseverance Finding the good Focusing on targets Writing Writing for a Middle Grade audience Unfulfilled plot promises Pantsing versus plotting Heightening emotion Writing a commercial book #1 thing you need to get a book deal Books on writing craft Finding your theme The problem with real life scenes On conflict Character motivation and goals Shelving a manuscript you love Figuring out your writing strength When a scene isn’t working out Learning through director commentaries Importance of names Frequent conflict before main conflict The good and bad of repeating Revising Finding overused words Trimming the fat in your manuscript How to know when your ms is ready How revising can help your writing Finding the issues in your manuscript Revising is like bedroom closets Agents How I picked which agent(s) to query Questions you should ask an agent Why a bad agent is worse than no agent Querying What worked for me Live pitching to an agent When insanity works Publishing The order of edits List launch Critiquing / Critique Partners The helpfulness of CPs How to find good critique partners (excellent advice in the comments section) Blogging Making a custom Popular Posts list How to enable your email so a blog author can respond to your comments Other Responding to negative reviews Planning a writing retreat Finding time to write Expending creative energy Fun Writing-Related Nonsense Titling your manuscript Renewing your creative energy Firing your inner editor Brain storage systems Super powers . Photo credit: Secret Life of a Chef's Wife

Blogs There are tons of great writing blogs out there. TONS. One of my favorites is Pub(lishing) Crawl. It's a group blog with authors, agents, an editor, and a lot of other industry people (like people in sales). It's very well written, and has tons of great info! Another good one is Nathan Bransford's blog. He's an agent turned author. On the left-hand column, there's a section called Publishing Essentials that has a lot of really great stuff. His other links on that sidebar are fabulous, too! The Bookshelf Muse is a great resource blog. It has tons of information on character traits, emotions, settings, etc. that give ideas of how to bring things to life more, and to not over-use the ones that first come to mind. Larry Brooks at Story Fix is an incredible teacher. Especially the Six Core Competencies in his bar at the top. He gets into the technical side. There are a few really good agent blogs, too. Kristin Nelson at Pub Rants is one of them. She has tons of great stuff in her sidebar. Another good agent blog is Rachelle Gardner's. She has great stuff in her sidebar, too. If you write kidlit and are looking for an agent, Literary Rambles is invaluable! It's a seriously incredible site. The Query Tracker Blog has great info, great help, and a great support community. Write On Con is an online writer's conference that happens once a year. They have tons of agents, editors, and authors speak / blog / hang out in forums, and they give out so much great information. It's focus is kidlit (young adult, middle grade, and picture book). There's a link in the sidebar to the transcripts from the previous year's conference. It's a wealth of fabulous info. I'd definitely spend some time there! Brandon Sanderson has a lecture series on Youtube. He is one of the few people who can really teach what it is that he does, and do it in a way that is easy to understand. I learned more from him than anyone else. I'll love him forever for it! Some other resources: Click on a tag--  crazy, sad, in love, worried, energetic, melancholy-- and songs play based on that tag. GREAT when you're trying to get in the exact mood for a scene! http://www.stereomood.com/ Writing Middle Grade and don't know your genre? http://www.gmbservices.ca/Jr/GenresInJuniorNovels.htm Wonder whether you write like a girl or a boy? (Okay, so maybe this shouldn't fall under "resources" so much as it should under "try it just because it sounds fun.") http://bookblog.net/gender/genie.php Need a break from writing? Spend time salivating over some pretty food. http://secretlifeofachefswife.com/