I was looking at the calendar today and realized that it was almost one year ago that I sat down to write my first book. It was a year of numerous changes and many highs and lows. I suppose in some ways, I’m shocked that I’m sitting here with four books under my belt and my fifth…
Category: The Writing Process
July SXSW Collaboration: Writing Chapter One
For this month’s July SXSW collaboration, Valerie and I are talking about starting anew. We both have finished our trilogies, and we are both embarking on the journey of creating a new series. I have to be honest; it really did take me awhile to get excited to begin writing again. I was still…
To make or not make a Book Trailer?
For a long time now I have struggled with the idea of making a book trailer. Every author seems to have one for their book nowadays but a lot of them have a little bit of the cheese factory going on and not the good kind people. When I started researching how to make one,…
June SXSW Collaboration: The End of the Beginning
It’s over. It’s done. It’s finished. Those three phrases are almost heart wrenching when it comes to writing a trilogy. On one hand, you feel like you have accomplished something truly extraordinary while on the other you feel an immense sense of sadness. It’s hard to put into words the emotions that are running…
Character Development: A novice point of view
“When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature.” -Ernest Hemingway Two of the most common questions people ask me is how do you come up with the story and the people that are in the book. I’m always slightly taken aback by these two…
Rough Draft, First Draft, and so forth…
I love this picture. I think if I had to use a typewriter then this is exactly what my office would like. I just finished my rough draft for Isle of Dawn and I was talking the other day with someone about how I go about writing when I sit down to start on a new novel….
Introducing Isle of Dawn
Well I did it! I finished writing my rough draft of Isle of Dawn this past weekend. I’m not sure if it’s because I have been writing this in my head for so long but I have to admit I was able to finish it pretty quickly. I think when you write a trilogy…
The Joys & Heartache of Writing a Trilogy
I’ve tried to formulate in my head the words I want to use to describe what I’m feeling right now but I found myself overwhelmed. There are so many emotions swirling through me. When I set out to write a trilogy I never really thought about the end. I knew that this story deserved…
To Query or not to Query…how and when is the question.
When I sat down to write my first book, Isle of Skye, I had no real plan as to what I was going to do with it when I was done. The more progress I made, the more I realized that I had to seriously start thinking about the future of my book. I…
Reflections
The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection. ~ Thomas Paine I took the day off yesterday and sat down to reflect about a few things. I was thinking about the fact that it was just about a year ago that I really started to ponder…
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