Silence is Golden for Writers

The Craft of Writing, The Writer's Life

If noise clutters your mind, you will produce shallow writing. Create silence and empower your authentic voice. As you enter the room, you immediately feel its aching potential. The neutral walls yearn for color, texture, or art—anything to animate the room, to tell...

To Share Your Writing—or Not?

The Craft of Writing, The Writer's Life

I recently attended two productive and gratifying writing events: one a week-long workshop, the other a three-day retreat. These events were, at once, similar yet very different from one another. On my long drive home from North Carolina, I contemplated those...

Query Letter Essentials

The Business of Writing

The query letter is effectively your written pitch to an editor or agent, enticing them to read or request your work. It is your first shot at gaining and, more importantly, HOLDING the editor’s/agent’s attention! Keep it simple. I’d use the KISS anagram, but I hate...

Show, Don’t Tell

Revising and Editing, The Craft of Writing

by Sam “SR” Staley Perhaps no advice has been more instrumental in improving the quality of my fiction than embracing the mantra “Show, Don’t Tell.” I don’t think I fully understood its importance until my second novel was published (which goes a long way...

5 Free Marketing Tools for Authors

The Business of Writing

by Shannon Bell Authors, especially when starting out, don’t have huge marketing budgets. What money we do have, we want to hold onto. Whether you have a traditional publisher or go indie, marketing your book is still up to you. This means you need to try to use the...