After careful consideration, I’ve decided to scrap the draft of Shades of Evil that I’ve been working on. I made the same mistake that I did with Prosperity by crowding the plot with too many characters. There are also some inconsistencies that I felt needed attention before I can continue. Yesterday, I spent the better [...] Read more »
Writing Progress: Shades of Evil
It’s been a long time since I’ve posted any news about my WIP. My progress is still slugging along, but it’s still going. I’m up to Chapter 20 right now, and feel that I may have reached the halfway point. I do know that I have a lot of editing to do once I get [...] Read more »
Writing to Heal
My mother-in-law passed away on June 2 from bacterial meningitis. Her passing was sudden and left her immediate family with bittersweet emotions. Four days after she died, I bought Journalution along with Beth Jacobs’ Writing for Emotional Balance. I had started journaling in my early twenties, but fell out of the habit after I reentered [...] Read more »
NaNoWriMo: You’ve Won!
Sometime around noon today, I surpassed the 50K mark for this year’s National Novel Writer’s Month contest. Even though I had written out a detailed outline the month before, I had reservations about finishing this thing before the end of the month. I’m nowhere near finished with this story yet, but I’m relieved that the [...] Read more »
NaNoWriMo Starts in One Week!
I have one week left to prepare for this year’s NaNoWriMo contest. So far, I’ve written three quarters of my outline and am struggling to figure out how this story is going to end. Usually, I have a general idea of how my stories are going to end before I write the first word. But [...] Read more »
Preparing for a Career Change
I’ve been dealing with my first case of serious blogger’s block these past few weeks. Ideas for posts would come, only to disappear as soon as I clicked on the “Write” button. After several minutes of staring at the blank input box, I’d close the blog and return to my new WIP, which is gaining [...] Read more »
Great Christmas Gifts for Writers
Can you believe the holidays are here again?! When looking for gifts for writers, I came across several blog posts that declared how hard we writers are to shop for. I emphatically disagree, and I’ll prove it. 1. Gift Certificates and Pre-paid Cards: Staples, Office Max, Amazon, Barnes&Noble, iTunes, Starbucks 2. How to Write Books: [...] Read more »
A Plot is Born
I went to work in a great mood this morning. It wasn’t because of the time change, which allows me to sleep an extra hour. And it wasn’t because I was going to start a new work week. I spent the entire weekend doing nothing but writing, mostly on my new book. How many of [...] Read more »
Lessons from Elance
Deb Ng at Freelance Writing Jobs wrote a good piece about freelance bidding sites, called Are Bidding Sites Worth It?. I started to post a comment, but it was turning a bit long. So, I will post it here. My perspective is a bit unique because I used Elance both to gain writing assignments and [...] Read more »
Black Friday in the Blogosphere forces Change
I’m sure you’ve heard all about Google’s attack on the blogosphere. If not, read Andy Beard’s Slapped by Google to get up to speed because this effects everyone who owns a blog. As a result of Google’s latest algorithm change, anyone who uses companies like Text Link Ads to monetize their blogs got slammed. Anyone [...] Read more »