by Jill Williamson | Jul 3, 2019 | Author Life, Fantasy, First Drafts, Story Structure
Jill here. I hope you are all having an amazing summer. I am. Even though it’s a very busy summer. Learning is always fun for me, and I am greatly enjoying my master’s degree program. I finished my first two classes already and am two weeks into my second...
by Stephanie Morrill | Jul 1, 2019 | Brainstorming, Characters
I’m still in Alaska, so here is another post from the archives! One of the biggest struggles of starting a new story is feeling like you don’t know these characters yet. Just like how in real life there’s no way to magically understand someone the...
by Shannon Dittemore | Jun 28, 2019 | Antagonists, Writing
We have a fantastic mailbag question for you today, but first I wanted to say THANK YOU all for your excitement and congratulations this week. In case you hadn’t heard, news about my upcoming book hit Publisher’s Weekly on Tuesday. I cried. I did....
by Jill Williamson | Jun 26, 2019 | Brainstorming, Editing, Mailbag, Scenes and Scene Structure, Story Structure, World Building, Writing
Today’s Go Teen Writers Mailbag Question comes from Maccey, who writes: I am trying to create a timeline for my story. I wanted to find a site that would let me, but so far I can’t find any decent ones. Do you have any suggestions? This question depends on...
by Stephanie Morrill | Jun 24, 2019 | Brainstorming, Characters, Writing
Because I’m currently in Alaska with my family, I’ll be pulling posts from the archives for the next couple of weeks. This one caught my eye because of our conversation a couple weeks ago about 8 Tips For Creating Meaningful Conflict In Your Stories and...
by Shannon Dittemore | Jun 21, 2019 | Author Life, Getting Published, Writing
I have news! Four years ago, in November of 2015, I had a story idea. It was a risk for me. Something totally different. But something that FELT like a story I should commit to. It was a fun idea. An idea that had me excited. I desperately wanted to explore the...
by Jill Williamson | Jun 19, 2019 | Self-Publishing
First of all, I need to draw a winner for the copy of Arcade and the Triple T Token. The winner is Samantha. Congrats! Samantha, please email me your mailing address and I’ll get the book ordered for you. And now I feel like I need to tell you how my picture...
by Stephanie Morrill | Jun 17, 2019 | Author Life, First Drafts, Productivity, The Craft of Writing, Writing, Writing Life
Over the last few years, I’ve seen an increasing amount of excitement about writing faster. Even aside from events like NaNoWriMo (where you write 50k in the month of November) the market is crowded with books about writing fast. I searched for “Write...
by Shannon Dittemore | Jun 14, 2019 | Creativity, Getting Published, Writing, Writing a Series, Writing Life
Most of my books start out untitled. I save the manuscripts to my computer as something bland and obvious. Angel Eyes was saved as Shield for the longest time and Broken Wings was called Book 2. My upcoming novel (which I should be able to announce NEXT WEEK, fingers...
by Jill Williamson | Jun 12, 2019 | Author Life
Today is the last day of my first session of grad school classes. I had so much homework to complete yesterday that I failed to squeeze in time for my blog post (I was up until 1:00 am working on this assignment), so I am taking a hiatus today. I do want to show you...
