Margie Lawson Does your real or imaginary writing checklist include: Make Character Descriptions Fresh, Unpredictable, Multi-Powerful? If not, it could. Character descriptions can add power on multiple levels. You can treat the reader to something fresh, something they haven’t read before. You can slip in details that deepen characterization too. Character descriptions provide an opportunity […]

Barbara Claypole White I’ve always been comfortable in my own skin, and yet I’m a hot mess of insecurity about everything I write, including this blog post. Why? Because it matters to me. Writing is my passion, which makes it a soft target for that inner voice of worry. Doubt has been my constant companion […]

By Barbara Claypole White Before the launch of my debut novel, THE UNFINISHED GARDEN, I lost 5lbs to performance terror. Painfully shy as a teenager, my mother and music teacher once had to conspire to sneak Valium backstage so I could perform a solo in the high school band. (It’s okay, we’re talking about the […]

By Nalini Akolekar For those of you who don’t know me, I started my publishing career back in the Stone Age as an editorial assistant at Silhouette Books.  I loved my job and was strongly encouraged to stay in the field, but life and children intervened and I wound up taking a hiatus from the business […]