Tasha Seegmiller   If you took a brief glimpse at my life, you would see that I’m the kind of person who wears many hats. In fact, when I describe all the facets to my day job, I usually just end up calling myself a bridge, because I cross over into several different areas. I […]

Ann Griffin As an indie author, I’ve been reading quite a few indie books lately. I have discovered a lot of fun reads and some great stories. However, I keep tripping over one particular writing error: breaking POV (Point of View.) You seasoned writers with agents and editors who comb through your manuscripts looking for […]

I first learned about Golden Lines the summer I attended the UCI Summer Writing Institute. After a particularly dense morning lecture, we were told to extract the golden lines, the ideas that we could use to improve our writing. Every year after the RWA Conference, I like to share the Golden Lines I've highlighted from […]

I chose this month's first page to explain writing tight. I am a 'spare writer', meaning that I cut every unnecessary word, so the read is fast and easy. If a word doesn't tell the reader something they don't know in a compelling way, out it goes. I'm not saying that you have to cut […]

  Most novels are written on the premise of "what if." Our What-if muscles help us figure out what needs to come next in the story. Sometimes we're lucky and we just know. More often (at least for me) we often have no clue what needs to happen next. When I write non-fiction for awhile, […]