A writer's journey...

Love your book come edit time Most authors don't ever want to see "their baby" again by the time it's published. They've read it, revised it, and rewritten parts it more times than they care to count. What if I told you the process could be a little easier?  Why not take a proactive approach? Here are 5 steps to make editing easier from the first draft: 1) Research before you write your book. This can be forensics, procedure, weapons--basically anything that pertains to your story. 2) Outline. Now if you're more of a panster you might balk at this, but at this point, I see value in at least setting out with a rough outline. If you don't want to do this from the start, as the story gets going, jot out future scenes. The benefit to this is logical progression. I have learned this lesson the hard way and it resulted in more intensive edits and rewrites. 3) Write when you're alert and sober. Writing is a business. Would you ever show u...

You’ve finished your first draft and now it’s time to really get to work. The “play” time of creating a story and following along with your characters has ended—or has it? Like everything else, editing is about mindset. Do you look at it as a dredging task or do you focus on the shining gem your manuscript will be when you finish? Do you get weighed down analyzing word play (sentence structure, for example) or do you realize how you’re sharpening your manuscript? See, there are two ways of looking at a situation. If you view editing as a tedious necessity, it’s pretty safe to surmise that you don’t enjoy the process. Unfortunately, this is going to reflect in the end product. You’ll take shortcuts. You’ll declare something as finished just because you don’t want to look at it again. But what if you were to think about the end result instead of the process to get there? What if you accepted editing as a necessary step in making your book marketable, in getting it into the ...

Have you ever read a book and noticed that a certain character acted differently than you would have expected? Did it throw you out of the story? While most of us follow a somewhat predictable path in regards to our habits and response to repetitive situations, life events have the power to alter our reaction. When it comes to fictional characters, I always defer to real life. Have you, or anyone you know well reacted differently to a situation than you would have thought? I am certain you can think of many instances. Personally, two weeks ago, I took off last minute to see my sister who lives four and half hours away by car. I took the train adding about two hours to the journey with layovers, et cetera. But this isn’t something my husband or she ever saw coming. I’m usually a bit of a planner. I don’t typically travel alone. These are just two aspects of my personality that don’t “allow” for me to just drop everything and go. So, must characters in our books be any...

Most of us have goals, dreams, aspirations that we want to accomplish. It's no secret that if we want to these to see fruition, it takes effort and requires sacrifice. Do you find that you are constantly failing to realize your goals, or finish projects? If so, it's time to stop and think about what is stopping you from attaining them.  You might retort that life's responsibilities are getting in the way, maybe you're feeling discouraged and you let it sway your line of sight, or you came up with another idea and it's tarnished the sparkle out of the last one.  These are just a few things that can decide whether you're successful, or well, not being successful. Life's Responsibilities We all have them, and there's nothing that can be done about them unless we're rich and can pay people to take care of everything for us. Yet even the wealthy have family and friends and the commitment that comes along with those relationships.  How ca...