Category: Uncategorized

Most of a publishing house’s marketing budget goes to its most popular, A-list authors.  You know: the ones least in need of the promotion.  If you have found a mid-list or new author whose work you enjoy, you can become a crucial, and very appreciated, part of his/her success.  What’s more, your enthusiasm may encourage him/her to keep writing!  Here’s how.

1. Leave honestly positive reviews everywhere you can:  Goodreads, Amazon, Kobo, your library, iBooks.  Tell people what you really liked about the book’s characters, themes, setting, style, and the genre on your blog, Facebook, Twitter, and anywhere else you can think of.  Reviews are key for a new reader to take a risk on an unknown author.

2. Tell your friends!  If you have a friend who likes the genre, recommend the book.  But, do the author a favour.  If your friends read romance, don’t recommend a horror…

Not on the same day a tragedy occurs. Not now when friends and family are reading your troll-ish, shit stirring comments below the news articles which by the way got all the facts wrong and leave me shaking my head wondering if reporters do any fact checking at all.  You want to talk about gun rights do it on your own time. Do it on your own blog, your own Facebook page or keep your evil to yourself.  A child is dead, our friend is dead and he is not a trophy for you to use for your personal cause against guns.

No one who knew Shawn Kilker is surprised that he killed a relative and then killed himself. No one can get their head around whose life he took before he took his own.  No one can believe that he shot his own son Keith.  Not so hard to…

I was going to write a blog post about social media and how I’ve been paring down my use of it, because I’m finding it to be not all that social or the best media for me at the moment. After discussing with a fellow author how disappointing Twitter is (and she cleverly described T. as “like a 4-lane highway at rush hour with cars bumper-to-bumper. It makes me nervous”), I realized what bothers me isn’t not being able to navigate and use Twitter properly, but more the barrage of Tweeps who constantly tweet: Look at me! Aren’t I clever! Buy my book!

Now I’m not saying that I don’t do some self-promotion on there, but I do try to balance that with tweets of value to others, including promoting fellow authors. And I also offer, up front in my profile, what I am prepared do for other Tweeps. Most…

There’s an artist and an engineer on your team.  They have different skills and you need to use both of them!  (Sylvia Taylor)

Sylvia Taylor presented a very practical workshop on editing at the Shuswap Lake International Writers’ Festival, and this quote is from that workshop.  Our very exacting and critical left brain and our very creative right brain can either work against one another or with each other.  This lesson is a very practical one for writers.

In this case, there is an “I” in team, since both members of the team are in our own head. When they’re fighting for our attention, nothing productive happens.  While our right brain is happily thinking up new plots and dialogue, our left brain is telling us our ideas are stupid and forcing us to second guess every line.  Sylvia recommended harnessing the ‘engineer’ of the right brain by doing timed…

You’re a writer.  You put your heart and soul into your work only to have it ripped out by critics.  People won’t always love your work.  They won’t even always like your work.  Heck, some of them won’t even be bothered to click the “Like” button on your blog, which we know doesn’t necessarily mean, “I really admire what you said,” but in social network circles it can actually simply mean, “I acknowledge that you said something and as your friend, I support you.”

Sometimes your friends will go out of their way to avoid you just so they don’t have to hear about the plot of your new work in progress.  Some of them won’t even be bothered to Like your Facebook page and pretend to be supportive.  Sadly, you may even run into people who seem to go out of their way to tell you just how much you…

For those of you who have never experienced mania, imagine your thoughts are 500 chipmunks simultaneously chugging a Venti 4 shot espresso, the rush in your brain takes off at turbo speed, all while you’re sitting quietly at your desk. Yes, I still can get squirrely, don’t get me wrong, but it’s my silver lassoed chipmunk power that get’s things done. That and a few cups of
“my precious “ Joe (my one and only vice) that fuels me.

Since being diagnosed with BP in Spring of 2013, I have learned to accept these manic moments when they come, and put them to good use. I form my plan of attack like the matador tames a bull, calming the fury with my silver lasso of clarity (step aside Wonder Woman) long enough to release that energy on a specific task. It’s very hard for many of us to contain those…

Magic Wand

Lead Soaring through the air

Making drawings and words appear

Erases bad things

Imagination blooms

Living things

New creations

Different world

Different you.

No pun intended “kid you not.”  My first graders were stuck, and I felt like they just weren’t getting this poetry thing.  Every once in awhile they’d come up with a poetic phrase.  (I’ve heard them say thousands of poetic things throughout the year.)  Now, when it really matters, they were stuck!  See?  It happens to ALL of us!   So, I said you can write about ANYTHING!  I grabbed a pencil and said, “Tell me about this pencil, first scientifically (so we could get that out of the way).  Now, my dear poets, let’s go deeper!”  And the magic began.  We NEED each other.  We deserve each other along this writing journey.  Sometimes writing is hard.  But with each other, writing can be magical…create…