Originally posted on DS&JM Reviews:
Reviewed by Jetana Mutter *This book was provided for an honest review When you hear ‘conspiracy theories’, people typically tend to think of the crazy people who like to wear tin foil hats that spew out all kinds of things. “Big brother is watching you”, “Aliens do exist”…
I’m currently in sunny Florida as a faculty member of the FWA Writers Conference. Yesterday, I presented my first workshop titled How I Sold 20,000 Copies of my Debut Novel in its First Twelve Months. I received lots of amazing feedback afterwards. One guy wanted a selfie with me. That was flattering but not the…
Last week, my fifth-grade reading group and I finished a classic novel. I’m not going to say which one it was because I’m not going to say very nice things about it. The story itself was fine. It followed a classic narrative structure and was occasionally gripping. The problem was… Well, it was boring in…
I participate in a Twitter chat called #TweepWriter. It’s a community where writers answer a different question every day throughout the month. Today was day 20, so this was the question: What was the first thing (poem, short story, book, blog post, etc) you ever wrote about? I think I misunderstood the question because I…
I saw an interesting image on Facebook this morning. I’ve been chewing on it all day and decided maybe “The Block” is reserved for creative pursuits – creating something from nothing can go off the rails sometimes. Are Painter’s Block and Quilter’s Block a thing? Allow me to offer my answer with a little story.…
Before I get started on today’s topic, I want to express a huge thank you to everyone who supported my fundraiser for Houston disaster relief or gave directly to an organization that will help people in need. We are seeing the best of America coming through every day, and if there’s a silver lining to…
Welcome to Part 4 of our blogging mini-series on where writers get stuck, which launched after I ran this poll on Twitter. The results were close enough that I decided to spend time on each one, in addition to a Super Secret Place Writers Get Stuck That’s So Super Secret I Didn’t Put It On…
Welcome to Part 3 of our Where Writers Get Stuck mini-series, inspired by this Twitter poll. Be sure to check Part 1 and Part 2 for solutions to planning and drafting problems. Today is where we put on a different hat, going from writer to publisher. Don’t freak out. We’re using the term “publisher” loosely.…
Welcome to Part 2 of our blog mini-series on where writers get stuck, based on this poll I took on Twitter. We started with Planning, though today’s topic is closely related – so closely, in fact, that Dan combined them in his response to Part 1. Drafting issues are often the result of planning issues.…
I took a poll on Twitter last week. My idea was to take the “winning” category and blog about it. You can see Drafting came out ahead, but you can also see the number of votes was rather low. So while it looks like Drafting came out significantly ahead, it’s probably only one or two…
Allison Maruska 