be the story

Career Survival for Writers

Here’s a special, almost secret message about Holly Lisle’s excellent course, How to Think Sideways. Click here, and do it now, because this message will disappear in a few days. (Read it to find out why.)

-TimK

Editing Your First Novel: 7 Things You Must Know

I had written and completed numerous shorter works over the years, but The Conscience of Abe’s Turn: Season 1 Episodes 1-4 is the first full novel-length work I had ever written and edited to completion. The experience taught me a whole new set of lessons.

Some of these lessons I learned from my own editing experience. Others are classic truths of which I was merely reminded, and with which I know other writers wrestle regularly. We each have our own hurdles to jump over. Still you might encounter–or perhaps you are encountering–one of these.

Be prepared with these 7 lessons learned from editing a first novel: (Read more…)

Mini-review: A Good Woman, starring Helen Hunt

I was in the mood for a romantic comedy, something to make me giggle and at the same time to make me feel. What I came out with was a bit less romance, a bit less comedy, but a whole lot of feeling. A Good Woman, starring Helen Hunt, based on Oscar Wilde’s play Lady Windermere’s Fan. (Read more…)

Night Echoes by Holly Lisle Book Review

I just read Holly Lisle’s novel Night Echoes. I put up a quick video review of the book, which is below. (Read more…)

PersonalityPage, Character Traits for Writers

I frequently use PersonalityPage.com to assemble personality traits for characterization. The site is not organized for writers. In fact, the site navigation is poorly designed and pretty difficult to figure out. I had to poke around the site a bit to find the best pages there for characterization and how to use them. But having done so, I discovered that the content on those pages is perfect for writers trying to create characters. (Read more…)

Online Fiction Tuesday #1

Most fiction is not worth reading, because 90% of everything is crap. This rule clearly applies to online fiction. Yet, I love to read a good story, and plenty of them are indeed published online. But it’s often hard to find them amongst the rest. Therefore, now wearing my editor’s cap, I present to you some online stories that I would categorize not-crap. (Read more…)

Carnival of Storytelling #9

Welcome to the Carnival of Storytelling!

Thanks to everyone who submitted articles. Please show your support by checking out other articles on these blogs.

If you would like to host an edition of the Carnival of Storytelling, please let me know.

Now, the most interesting posts in the blogosphere about telling stories…

(Read more…)

Why I Don’t do 70 Days of Sweat (and other sprints)

70 Days of Sweat, Round 3 begins tomorrow. I will not be participating. Just as I participate in neither NaNoWriMo nor NaNoEdMo. Why not? What do I have against writers trying to write a book? Nothing, except…

In my view, either I’m a writer, and I write consistently. Or I’m not a writer, and I don’t. Therefore, churning out a novel before the end of the day May 10, that exercise does not make me a writer. Just a few hundred words each and every day, that does make me a writer. This misperception many writers and aspiring writers seem to have. It’s as if they think they need to push themselves to the limit in order to get enough time for writing, and that requires something like NaNoWriMo or 70 Days of Sweat.

Or else there’s some lure in the idea that, if you just buckle down and do it, you could actually write a novel in only a month (or 2½ months). I think that’s the wrong attitude to take. Rather, look at it this way: If you can spend just 10 or 20 minutes each day writing, you can finish a complete novel in under a year. That’s right, if you really want to be a writer, you don’t have to give up your life. You don’t have to “find time,” because you can probably find 10 or 20 minutes easily enough. (More on that in a sec.) (Read more…)

Sharing the Love with Holly Lisle Fans: Limited-time Free Offer

• Because Holly Lisle’s writing e-books have bailed me out more than once…
• Because Holly knows the value of paying forward…
• Because I want to follow in her footsteps…
• And because February is the month of Valentine’s Day…

If you’ve ever bought any of the electronic downloads from Holly Lisle’s online web shop, this limited-time freebie is available to you.

Click here to find out more.

-TimK

Carnival of Storytelling #8

Welcome to the Carnival of Storytelling!

Thanks to everyone who submitted articles. Please show your support by checking out other articles on these blogs.

If you would like to host an edition of the Carnival of Storytelling, please let me know.

Now, the most interesting posts in the blogosphere about telling stories…

(Read more…)