by Jill Williamson | Mar 15, 2023 | Getting Published, Learning from Other Authors
(A version of this post was originally published September 24, 2012) Query letters often feel daunting and mysterious, but they really haven’t changed much in the past dozen years. Roseanna White wrote an excellent post that you can check out...
by Jill Williamson | Feb 22, 2023 | Scenes and Scene Structure, Story Structure, Writing
In my early days of writing, I spent some time studying scene structure. I was trying to understand pacing, and it just wasn’t clicking for me. I eventually gave up trying to “put myself in a box,” and ever since, I’ve written my scenes...
by Jill Williamson | Feb 15, 2023 | Author Life, Brainstorming, Learning from Other Authors, Writing
I’ve been to many writing retreats. Most of them have loose schedules. We write. We eat. We write. We sleep. We write. We sometimes go out into the world for a change of pace. But we usually come right back and write. I prefer retreats where the authors who come...
by Jill Williamson | Jan 18, 2023 | Goals, Learning from Other Authors, Writing As A Business
Many of you have likely heard my publication story, how the first time I pitched my book, I bombed big time? The speaker had just taught how to write a logline, and I ignored everything he said. If that wasn’t bad enough, I was pitching him a book that...
by Jill Williamson | Dec 21, 2022 | Brainstorming, Creativity, Fantasy, Setting, World Building, Writing Tools
If you missed the first two posts in this series, you can check them out here: Geography for Worldbuilding, Part OneGeography for World-Building, Part Two: Climate, Weather, and Biomes When I drew my very first fantasy map, I knew it needed water. My world was a...