by Shannon Donnelly Emotion. It’s what we read for in fiction. We want the thrill, the sorrow, the laughter, and the tears. Unfortunately, words are abstracts. Emotions are visceral—they’re in our bodies. That means the illusion to bring about emotion has to be studied and learned. And it’s the same challenge with every book—how to […]

by Pamela Morsi As a writer without a plan, I don’t get invited to comment often on my writing process. Telling people, “oh, I just make it up as I go along” tends to annoy my colleagues and confuse newcomers. I’m an organic writer. Or at least that what Donald Maass calls it. Pardon the […]

by Mary Burton Remember the moment when you sat down to write your first novel?  Do you remember?  I remember mine.  It’s hard for me to believe but that moment was over twenty years and 26 books and four novellas ago.  Along the way, I’ve learned many valuable lessons and I thought I’d take a […]

This week we've been focusing on how the changing times in publishing are affecting the publishing dream. On Monday, aspiring author Orly Konig-Lopez shared her dream, Wednesday debut author Laura Drake talked about her evolving dream, and today, multi-published Marilyn Brant will close out the series. A Multi-published Author’s Perspective by Marilyn Brant First of all, […]

by Susan Spann Last month’s guest post here at Writers in the Storm took a look at wills in author estate plans. Today, we’ll look at the other common estate planning device: the trust. A trust is a legal entity (a “fictitious person”) created by a trust agreement. Its purpose is to hold and manage […]