Young Adult Indie Author
Creating characters that make readers fall in love takes time and many, many layers of development. If you’ve taken my free training, Novel Narrator, and used Tarot to create your characters then you have an amazing character but to take that character and add some depth, we need to do a few more things. …
Why community is important, even if you are between writing projects Writing can be lonely, and most of the time that’s exactly what we like about our chosen career, the solitude of talking to our imaginary friends. But when those friends stop talking to us it’s helpful to have real life people, other writers, around…
I thought I knew so much when I pushed publish on my first novel, but whoo boy was I wrong! Here are five lessons that I learned during the self-publishing process that I went through with my very first novel. Negative reviews will hurt My advice – find someone you trust to read the…
Yay! You’ve finished your first draft – congratulations! Now, are you ready for the editing process? Don’t be scared. Yes, editing is a totally different beast and it can get long and lonely, but following the advice below will help you keep your spirits high and motivation even higher. Make it FUN Editing can be…
7 problems that authors might face when writing a first draft Writing a first draft can be exciting and fun, but there are also some pitfalls that might cause an author to rethink the whole thing. I know that I start out with hope, optimism and lots of energy when writing my own first drafts,…
When I was starting my Tarot journey, the thought of learning meanings and descriptions for 78 cards seemed super daunting. In fact, I was overwhelmed to the point that I stalled my study for a few months before I gained traction. The thing that helped during that time was learning some basics. These included knowing…
Using Tarot cards to come up with ideas is one of my favorite ways to use the cards and it’s a fairly easy process. Decide what you need ideas for Are you writing a YA novel, a series of Science Fiction books, or blog posts? Seriously, this concept can be used for just about any…
Feeling stuck or suffering from Writer’s Block is not fun, but it’s nothing to feel ashamed of. You know what I’m talking about. Someone asks how the book writing is going and you say things are good even though you haven’t technically sat down in days (or months) and actually written or edited anything. You…
You used my tips from my last blog post and your characters are talking to you again, the words are flowing, and you are feeling on top of the world…until you aren’t. You just can’t get into the groove, words sound stilted, your dialogue sounds like a kindergartener wrote them, you are just feeling stuck. …
Has this ever happened to you? You are writing your draft, words are flowing and then one day your characters just stop talking to you? You know what I’m talking about – words stop, dialogue sounds wrong, characters are doing things that are not in your outline. What is going on? We all know that…