Editing and Book Coaching Services for Speculative Fiction Writers
What’s Your Why? If writing can be so difficult, why bother? Some writers seem to breeze through drafts while others struggle through. I’m the latter type. I parse out words, agonize over plot, and plumb the depths of my character’s motivations. Writing, like many other pursuits worth undertaking, is a journey. But just as it …
What is Show Don’t Tell? Ah, yes, the most overused piece of writing advice out there. But what does “Show Don’t Tell” actually mean? And how can you use this to strengthen your writing? Generally, “telling” is exposition where the reader is told what is happening. The reader knows the facts of what happened …
Can You Still See The Stars? As a science fiction writer and an avid stargazer, I love seeing the stars. They remind me of where in the universe we are. A recent article by CBC proposed that, due to light pollution, “most Canadians are about as likely to see the Milky Way as they are …
Book Review: The Cosmic Turkey by Laura Loomis Genre: Science Fiction Comedy Publisher: Thinklings Books, LLC Release Date: Aug. 3rd, 2020 Pages: 161 Available on Amazon Links in this post are affiliate links – which means I may receive a percentage of the revenue generated from purchases through these links. SYNOPSIS from Amazon.ca Technology Hates …
With so many competing writing software available, how can you know which ones will work best for you? Should you stick to Microsoft Word? Would you like a program that can organize your planning? Or an editing software that will analyze your text? What options are there? This post provides an overview of the writing …
How to Tighten Your Prose Brevity and clarity often go hand-in-hand. Tightening your prose makes it more readable and provides an immersive experience for your reader. So how do you do this? Choose Strong Verbs Instead of Adverbs In his book On Writing, Stephen King famously said (see what I did there?), “The road to …
What Is NaNoWriMo? NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month (ironically this event is international but that’s beside the point). NaNoWriMo takes place every November and is a creative writing challenge in which writers from all over the world attempt to write a 50,000-word novel in a month. Having participated in NaNoWriMo for the past two …
With only two weeks left to go in October, NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is just around the corner. What is NaNoWriMo? Every November, writers from all over the world congregate online — all united by the goal to each write 50,000 words in 30 days. This averages out to 1667 words each day in …
What is a Live Action Slush? A live action slush is when a section of a writer’s work (typically the opening pages) is read out loud and critiqued immediately. The evaluators tell the author what their impressions would be if they had picked this up out of their slush pile. A ‘slush pile’ is a …
Creative Exhaustion: How to Recover from Burnout The term burnout has always seemed deceptive to me. It provokes imagery of the dying embers of a flame — fading eventually to coals. The term gives the sense that the fire stops. Congratulations you’ve reached the end of your rope! Now you get to rest and recharge …