by Stephanie Morrill | Nov 15, 2012 | Uncategorized
by Rachel CokerRachel Coker resides in Lanexa, Virginia with her parents, who’ve homeschooled her since she was a child, and two sisters. She is the author of 2012’s Interrupted: A Life Beyond Words. Coker has a passion for great books and has been surrounded by them...
by Stephanie Morrill | Nov 14, 2012 | Uncategorized
by Stephanie MorrillA writer asked me, “I always know exactly how I want the story to play out, but I never know how to begin. I always get stuck with how to introduce the topic to the reader. Do you have any tips for me?”Great question, because if the...
by Jill Williamson | Nov 13, 2012 | Writing
by Jill WilliamsonI’ve done some research these past few weeks on this topic, and here’s what I found: Mystery novels make you think. Suspense novels make you sweat.But let’s look a bit closer at each.The Mystery NovelA mystery is a secret. A puzzle to...
by Stephanie Morrill | Nov 12, 2012 | Uncategorized
by Roseanna White, editor for WhiteFire PublishingAsk an Editor Not long ago, Stephanie blogged on finding the literary agent that’s right for you. I’d already known I would be writing about finding the publishing house that’s right for you, so this...
by Jill Williamson | Nov 9, 2012 | Writing
By Jill WilliamsonI started writing my novel The New Recruit in 2004. I attended my first writer’s conference in 2005, where I learned that my writing needed a lot of work. Near the end of 2006, I was preparing to attend a large writer’s conference in the...
by Stephanie Morrill | Nov 7, 2012 | Uncategorized
by Stephanie MorrillI don’t want to make anybody die of jealousy or anything, but some things are just way too good to keep to yourself. Like this:Oh yeah. That’s my daughter and I on the left, my friend Kelli on the right … and Ree Drummond in the...
by Jill Williamson | Nov 6, 2012 | Writing
by Jill WilliamsonThis thing all things devours:Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;Gnaws iron, bites steel;Grinds hard stones to meal;Slays kings, ruins town,And beats high mountains down.–J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit(Guess the answer in the comments...
by Stephanie Morrill | Nov 5, 2012 | Uncategorized
a guest post from Dandi Daley MackallDandi won her first writing contest as a 10-year-old tomboy. Her 50 words on “Why I Want to Be Batboy for the Kansas City A’s” won first place, but the team wouldn’t let a girl be batboy. It was her first taste of rejection.Since...
by Jill Williamson | Nov 2, 2012 | Writing
by Jill WilliamsonIt’s time for another punctuation lesson. I know… boring! But I see colons misused often in the manuscripts of new writers, along with semicolons, dashes, and ellipses. I promise to post only one punctuation lesson a month.Today’s...
by Stephanie Morrill | Nov 1, 2012 | Uncategorized
by Stephanie MorrillI’ve had a few questions in the last week about writing series versus writing a stand alone book. The first writer asked, “How do you decide when to confine a story line to one book, or to have it span over a series?”Well. I think...
