by Stephanie Morrill | Apr 6, 2022 | Writing
Hello from Seattle! Check out the view from our house here! Jill, Shannon, and I are on a writing retreat together in the Seattle area. This is the first time we’ve all been together since 2014! Monday night, we taught at the Northwest Christian Writers...
by Stephanie Morrill | Mar 30, 2022 | Creativity, Writing, Writing Life
When we arrived home from our spring break trip a few weeks ago, my husband tasked the older two kids with cleaning out the camper. I ran to the grocery store and came back to find them still hard at work, vacuuming and sanitizing. As I put away groceries, my oldest...
by Stephanie Morrill | Mar 23, 2022 | Guest Posts, NaNoWriMo, The Craft of Writing, Writing
Stephanie here. I’m SO excited to be hosting Colin Cannici today! Colin has been a part of our community for a while now, and I loved reading his insights from writing a novel so quickly. I kept finding myself nodding as I read through it. Even if you’re...
by Jill Williamson | Mar 16, 2022 | Writing
Do you struggle with introducing a large cast of characters in memorable ways? Recently, I read several Agatha Christie novels, and one of the things that popped out to me about her writing style was her character descriptions. Since she wrote mysteries, it was...
by Shannon Dittemore | Mar 9, 2022 | Author Life, Encouragement, Goals, Productivity, Writing, Writing Life
I wrote this post two years ago. It ran shortly after Covid shut the world down, and after the headlines of this week, I knew I needed to read these words again. I hope it encourages your heart. – SD There’s an old poem with no title and an unknown author, and...
by Stephanie Morrill | Mar 2, 2022 | Creativity, Writing, Writing Life
I don’t use words like always and never very often on the blog, but I feel pretty good about stating this as an absolute: If you stick with writing for long enough, you will go through a hard season. More than one, I’m guessing. My first hard season came...
by Stephanie Morrill | Feb 23, 2022 | Author Life, Writing Life
Most writers understand that when you work for yourself, as all novelists do, you need to be self-motivated and disciplined. Even when you have an agent or editor, there’s nobody looking over your shoulder and telling you to write your book instead of watching Netflix...
by Jill Williamson | Feb 16, 2022 | Go Teen Writers Book Club, Learning from Other Authors, Plot, Scenes and Scene Structure, Story Structure, The Craft of Writing, Writing Tools
It’s no secret that I love Blake Snyder and his Save the Cat books. I own them all. I’ve read and dogeared them all. I’ve even taught workshops on his process at writing conferences! And I’ve blogged about it here, often. If you search for...
by Shannon Dittemore | Feb 9, 2022 | The Craft of Writing, Writing
The chosen one trope is one of my favorites, and since the cover for my book, Rebel, Brave and Brutal, is being revealed today, and since my main character falls into this category, I think it’s the perfect time to discuss why I love it so much. Real quick: The...
by Stephanie Morrill | Feb 2, 2022 | Characters, Compelling Character Series, First Drafts, Writing, Writing Tools
In the first post of this series, I talked about how I get to know my characters as I write, not through a bunch of exercises from before I write the book. Last week, I talked about four filters you can use to understand and manipulate your characters’...
