It's on! NaBalWriMo

Many of you are on board with a NaNoWriMo alternative in which we DON'T push ourselves to the brink of insanity drafting 50K words in a month (kudos to those who do--there's a...

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NaNo-No: Because this ain't the month to disappear

The interwebs are all abuzz with the approach of November, which for many will mean NaNoWriMo: an intense 30 days of drafting something completely new, very fast, with built-in...

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"Writer's block": Wall or desert? (part 2)

We all get stuck at times, find our productivity come to a screeching--or sputtering--halt. In THIS previous post, I discussed one of the causes--hitting walls because we hadn't...

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Austen fans--giveaway at Read. Write. Repeat.

Lisa Galek, a fellow YA writer, is giving away a copy of the YA historical novel I Was Jane Austen's Best Friend by Cora Harrison over at Read. Write. Repeat. Click HERE to find...

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"Writer's block": Wall or desert? (part 1)

Every writer has times when s/he can't seem to make forward progress on a project. Writing books everywhere have suggestions about why this is, and how to overcome it.In my reading,...

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Giveaway winner!

Thanks to all who entered my drawing to win the easy reader Adventures of the Poodle Posse: Creepy Tails.I entered your names in random.org and let it choose my lucky winner...

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Sunday fun: shop with zombies

I tend to think of Sears as a place to pick up tools and appliances, though I vaguely remember their fat Christmas catalog we'd pore over when I was little--mostly for the toys,...

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Halloween giveaway

Just in time for Halloween, I'll be giving away a copy of Adventures of the Poodle Posse: Creepy Tails. This adorable easy reader includes an illustrated story about the Poodle...

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Push to publish (part 2): marketing tidbits

More highlights from the Push to Publish conference I attended last Saturday.Keynote"A writer works on a novel for years. She wakes up with it, she goes to bed with it. She loves...

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Push to Publish highlights, part 1

As I'd mentioned last week, I headed to a great little local writer's conference on Saturday called "Push to Publish," run by Philadelphia Stories magazine. The conference featured...

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First 250 Blogfest

Today Elle Strauss is hosting the First 250 Words blogfest. Stop on by her blog to sign up and see the other participants. Here's the opening to the book I'm pitching at a conference...

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Any tips for pitching?

I've been intensely revising my first 50 pages in order to be pitch-ready for the Philadelphia Stories's Push to Publish Conference this Saturday.Part of the day includes a "speed...

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Motion and emotion

One surprisingly helpful class from my undergrad days was a theatre course I took called "Basic Movement." In it, we learned some of the tools of the trade of acting--stances,...

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I'm sure there's a story in here

Do you ever have one of those indecisive days? When you start six different blog posts and can't finish any of them? Maybe it's the total frenzy at work or the fact I was sick...

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Semi-serious punctuation help (a cleverly disguised rant)

Dear Editor-on-call:When is it best to use a semicolon instead of a period?Yours truly,Pausing for effect(aka Shannon O'Donnell at Book Dreaming)========Dear Pausing,True confession...

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Honey, Baby, Bozo

I've been called a lot of things besides my given name at various stages of my life: shortened forms of my name, teasing terms about some undesirable trait, cozy pet names, cool...

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Can't touch this

Writing a great first line is a bear, isn't it? I can't tell you how many times I've added and taken away entire chapters from the front end of my book. This past week I spent...

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