by Jami Gold If you’ve heard of beat sheets before, you might have heard about complicated forms or spreadsheets. I don’t know about you, but I don’t do math. Heck, I write my stories by the seat of my pants, so something that forces me to draft in a regimented way doesn’t appeal to me […]

By Shannon Donnelly Great dialogue can make or break a novel. This view may stem from growing up watching a lot of 1930’s screwball comedies. Zingers fly with rapid fire and everyone talks. A lot. But the importance of dialogue really sank in when I wrote A Proper Mistress. I went for a lot of dialogue […]

by James Preston The general who wins the battle makes many calculations in his temple before the battle is fought. The general who loses makes but few calculations beforehand. -- Sun Tzu First, thanks for having me back.  I really enjoy these opportunities to talk about our work. About this entry -- If you have […]

by Kathryn Craft Turning Whine into Gold Everything’s changing. Yep—that’s a whine all right, and a truth, and the summary of this entire post. Change is as constant in publishing as any other industry impacted by computerization in the past twenty years. But change can be especially hard to grapple with for writers. Here’s why, […]

by Cynthia D’Alba I was sitting an RWA chapter meeting last month when the older woman beside me said, “I didn’t think I’d have to do so much promotion. I thought the publishing company took care of that.” She sighed. “Things have changed.” I just nodded but in reality,  I wouldn’t know how things used […]