Liana Brooks – Page 11

Articles posted by Liana Brooks (Page 11)

Trying Something New

Tomorrow I’m doing something new. I’m taking a script writing class. It’s a brand new creative ocean to go swimming in, and I feel like a very tiny guppy who isn’t going to be able to complete with the lovely fish in California who have years of experience talking about…

WRITER CRAFT WEDNESDAY – What To Do When You’re Stuck

Let’s practice a little visualization… You sit down in front of your computer today with 6,000 words written and the plan to write Chapter 3. You have your notes and your outlines. This is the perfect time of your writing day, and everything is how you need it to be…

MONDAYS IN PUBLISHING – How To Write A Query Letter (the updated version)

QUERY(n) – the letter a hopeful author sends to an agent or editor with the express wish of getting the manuscript off their desk and onto someone else’s publication schedule. The query is an essential part of the publication process even for Indie Authors, it’s also one of the more misunderstood…

Writing Is Hard

Writing is hard. Publishing is harder. There’s a bell curve. The weakest get weeded out early on. They talk about wanting to write, and the book they’ve always imagined, but never actually sit down to write. On the top end you lose the truly gifted. The delicate orchids of writer-dom…

Writer Craft Wednesday – Draft by Draft: How Books Get Written

One of the first lessons a novelist learns is that writing a book is not like writing an essay in school. The dynamics are different. The time factors are different. The end results are different. The drafts are different. With an essay it’s common to finish a full draft of…

Mondays In Publishing – Setting Goals for Publication – What You Can Control & What You Can’t

It’s that time of year again! You know, the season of setting goals, making resolutions, and generally convincing yourself that this year will be different through the sheer force of your holiday-fueled determination. Everyone finds it easy to make goals when there’s a ton of enthusiasm and peer support for…

Mondays In Publishing: A Glossary of Publishing Terms

Author, novelist, writer… What’s the difference? Spelling, for the most part. I’ve never found a satisfactory definition to differentiate, although I tend to think of writers as non-fiction news people (a bias left over from my newspaper days). The real difference is between an Author and a Published/Contracted Author. When…

Writer Craft Wednesday – Deadlines and What To Do With A Very Long Book

I often say I’m a slow writer. My editor disagrees. It’s not that I write slowly, it’s that I write long. Really, really, REALLY long. In romance it isn’t uncommon to see a novel that’s 40,000 – 60,000 words long, especially over on the indie ebook side. Romance readers are…

Mondays In Publishing – Genre

GENRE It’s a scary word for some people. I’ve met people who will argue genre until they are blue in the face. I have met people who think genre is a form of gate-keeping. I have met people who think genre is a waste of time. I have never met…

Writer Craft Wednesday – Finding A Story You Can’t Wait To Write

Finding an idea is both the easiest and hardest part of writing. You want to find something that you’ll love enough to write on the bad days. There’s not BUT there. No AND. When you’re coming up with an idea you don’t need to worry about marketability and trends. “But,…