The other day I dropped one of those Question boxes onto my Instagram story so that I could do a big Q&A style blog post, but I only got one real honest-to-goodness question, the rest were spammers and bots. I was a bit disappointed until I realized that the human question that was asked was…
Category: Books
How The “New Normal” Is Affecting My Writing Life
“How’s the novel coming?” This question, to be honest, leaves me feeling cold lately. The writing is just not flowing. Editing feels like I’m trying to create a beautiful statue from a giant slab of marble, slow and meticulous. Kinda tiring really. 😞 We discussed a few weeks ago the concept of new…
Why I Write Coming Of Age Stories for Young Adults
I write contemporary coming of age young adult novels. It’s a mouthful and it might not even be the correct terminology – I have no idea – but it’s what I write. I write books set in the now, in a real city in the real world with fictional characters going through things that…
An Interview With Etta And Gina
Today I would like to introduce you to Henrietta and Virginia, the two main characters in my current novel. I thought it would be fun to do a little interview and see what these two are up to. “Excuse me, did you just call me Henrietta? Only my Mom calls me that,” Etta says…
My Author Journey: How I Went From “Oohhh NaNoWriMo Sounds Fun” To “Self-Published Author”
Grab a beverage, sit back and get comfy because I have a story to share. It all started about ten years ago when I decided to try writing a novel in one month during National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) which gave me the writing bug something fierce, so I decided to take a writing class…
How To Get Into The Head Of A Character
I’m getting ready to start the 3rd round of revisions on this current WIP and with that comes some new characters (and revisiting old characters) and getting to do something I absolutely love – using my acting skills! If you didn’t know, I have a BFA in Theatre Performance, and although I no longer do…
Change Is Inevitable
It’s been a while since I’ve written, I know. This is for a few reasons — 1) I thought I might have overloaded you guys when I was re-launching The Art of Lying and 2) I needed a little break from writing myself. But…I’ve taken a little break, watched Gilmore Girls again on Netflix…
How I Use Pinterest To Help Me Write My Novels
My debut novel isn’t 100% ready to be published yet, but I have already started working on my 2nd novel. Right now I’m still in the very beginning – or outline mode – but before I blink, I will quickly be descending into research, drafting, and revision modes so I already started a Pinterest board…
What I’m Currently Reading
Starting a writing career involves a lot of sitting down and well…writing, but one must also keep the well fully stocked with new images and new ideas. I do this in a few ways – movies and TV shows (because I’m visual like that), listening to music (because music feeds my soul in a way…
Creating a 3-Act Structure with Tarot Cards
I’m back for part two of my writing exercises using the Tarot for Writers book and my tarot cards. Last week I created a new character, named Leo, and this week I’m using an exercise on page 72 about creating a three-act structure with two plot points. I did not pull a card for the climax (seen in…