This has been a great month of planting seeds. Hopefully, you’ve taken the time to do that and you have some momentum going. It’s easier for a moving object to continue moving than for a stationary object to try to start moving. So, don’t stop. Keep moving forward. Hoe your row. You want to care for your emotional garden so that you will have healthy emotions, and plenty of them. In this extra Saturday in March, let’s wrap this lesson up by me giving you a few tips on things you can do to keep your emotions healthy, particularly as you write. Remember that writers can be very sensitive and that may cause you to feel things more deeply than others would. When you feel those negative emotions, you must […]
Read the RestArchive | March, 2012
Frasier deadline is Saturday!
Tomorrow’s the big day, peeps…the deadline for the MBT Frasier Contest! The Frasier Contest is MBT’s annual contest for unpublished writers. Entry is simple – the first 1,500 words of your novel and a 500-word synopsis. Just click here to submit your piece. Okay, so maybe you’ve heard us talking about the Frasier Contest for the past couple months. Maybe you’re waffling, not sure whether or not you should enter. Would you like my advice? (I’m going to give it regardless, sooo…) Do it! Enter! Here’s the deal: Whether you’re a complete newbie or you’ve already got a couple stories under your belt or even if you’ve had a manuscript request from agents and editors and just haven’t nabbed that contract yet…this contest is for you. The whole goal of […]
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Let Your Characters Tell the Story
A few years ago Susie and I were writing books with very high concept premises. Or is it premii? She was writing RITA finalist My Foolish Heart. I was writing Dining with Joy. The former was about a radio host for the lovelorn who’d never been on a date. The latter about a cooking show host who couldn’t cook. Great ideas. Great pitch lines. Easy to see and understand. But when we were writing, the premise itself became paralyzing. We dubbed those books the ones with the paralyzing premise. High concept is great. Almost necessary in today’s publishing world. But writing them can be a challenge because you’ll always wonder, “Am I capturing the premise well?” In Dining with Joy, not only did I have to explain how and why […]
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The Next Step: Putting your Phone to Work!
Hi Everyone! My name is Alena Tauriainen and I’m a newbie writer. It’s true, I’m addicted. I’ve started this amazing journey to write. Do you find this journey fun yet difficult? That’s my experience so far. With four children, a spouse, school and a family business to keep up, time is of the essence. Once I discovered this desire to write, I had to get creative in finding time to learn the craft and actually write. We all have the same twenty-four hours in a day, but some days I blink and the day is over. I’ve had to be inventive to find the time, ANY time to learn and to write. I was so very excited with my latest discovery. Smart Phones!!! I have an HTC Android and I figured […]
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