Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 2, 2019

IWSG: October or should I say...Preptober


It's Preptober. At least that's what the NaNoWriMo people are calling it. Sure why not. So what do us pantsers do for NaNo prep? Typically I'd do nothing. Because: Pantser. The past couple years I've tried a variety of loose prep just to...try.

I've made lists of prompts with the intention of writing a host of short stories. So prepared with ideas, but I ended up writing a novel entirely unrelated to any of the prompts.

I've written a very, very quick and dirty one page outline. That novel fell quickly fell apart. Not for fault of the novel or outline, but my thoughts were elsewhere and I ended up writing something entirely different.

One year I wrote a one page synopsis. That actually worked nicely, by the way.

So this year? I had a dream a couple weeks ago, one of those dreams where you go, OMG this would be a great story if I could flesh it out. I've been mulling it over in my 'free' time. Those that know me, know what a joke that is. But yes, I've been mulling. Last night I wrote five plot points on a tiny piece of paper while waiting to do an author interview. I'm calling that my Preptober effort. Will I end up writing this story? No idea. November is a long way off as far as wandering ideas and fickle inspiration go. But I'm going to try.

If you're not familiar with 
Group, check it out here 
and find links to all the other 
participating writers.
And now on to this month's question: It's been said that the benefits of becoming a writer who does not read is that all your ideas are new and original. Everything you do is an extension of yourself, instead of a mixture of you and another author. On the other hand, how can you expect other people to want your writing, if you don't enjoy reading?

I've never heard this before and my general stance is that it's a load of horse hockey. (That may be the allergy meds talking.) Our ideas are influenced by everything around us, not just want we read. The only thing new or original about storytelling is the spin you put on it. There are books on this that outline all the major plots. The thing that makes them interesting is how you put your personal touches on the variables. You, your life experiences and all the media you ingest, are the flavor that colors the words.

Do you need to read? Yes. Though, not necessarily for the ideas. But, reading shows you how to write, how to form story structure, pleasing sentences, interesting characters, robust plots and settings. By reading and finding authors you enjoy, you may end up adopting some of their storytelling style. That's not a bad thing. If they can successfully tell an engaging story and that's your goal, learn from them.

Monday, September 23, 2019

Chain Of Grey Update

With all the events I've had going on this summer, you may have surmised that my editing time has been a bit on the low end of the schedule spectrum. I'd hoped to have Book Two of The Narvan in hand by November, but that just isn't going to happen. It's also like the publisher has three other books they're trying to get out before mine. The new goal is the end of January.

I'll be taking six weeks off of book signings to relax. Will I actually relax? Probably not. I'm not good at that. But, as of this moment, I don't plan on scheduling anything so I can maybe spend some time working on one of the countless projects lingering on my computer. Because...yeah...a new book came to me the other night. I may have finally hit upon a YA fantasy idea I can follow through with. Maybe. We're treading lightly with the idea right now, considering, pondering. It may be my NaNo novel this year instead of Narvan's possible book five - which is halfway done so yes, that is also happening. Or may just happen for me to read, but it's in the works.

So much in the works.

After having January off, I'll be heading over to Lansing for the Women's Expo for three days: February 7-9. It's sure to be a good time, meeting readers and hanging out with some of my author friends. There are always good times with that bunch.

But for now, this is my view. Lots of scrawled notes highlighted in orange so I don't miss them.

My computer has read the book to me. I've made notes. This book's biggest editing problem is missing "a" in sentences. That's a new one for me. I'm usually missing "the". You kick one problem and pick up another, I swear.

But as soon as I wrap up making these corrections, it's off to the publisher to get into the formatting and proofreading queue. And cover creation. You'll see what they come up with as soon as I have it in hand.



Wednesday, June 5, 2019

IWSG: June and Ren Faire Adventures

Another month has flown by. I've been busy out promoting Trust and my other books at various events. The past couple weeks, I've ventured into Ren Faires and it was a blast. And rainy. And muddy. But fun despite all that. Got to love the erratic Spring weather in Michigan.

I also finished sewing my first dragon.  It took a lot of time, but I had no idea how much until I started keeping track with the next two that I'm working on. Once those are done I'll be bringing them to events with me to sell as my first dragon has been quite popular, but as he is my test dragon, there are things I'm doing differently with the next ones. Do you have any name suggestions? I've been taking suggestions, but I haven't picked on yet. Feel free to drop yours in the comments below.


Onward to this month's Insecure Writer's Support Group question:
If you're not familiar with 
Of all the genres you read and write, which is your favorite to write in and why?

I'm partial to writing Science Fiction, though Fantasy is a very close second. When I first really started reading as a kid, I dove into Mystery, because that's what my Mother read. It didn't take me long to wander into the Science Fiction section, probably because the kids books were all on one wall in our small indie bookstore. Horror followed soon after and then I branched into Fantasy and Paranormal.

With that mash up of inspiration, I like to incorporate aspects of all of those genres into my own writing. It's no surprise that I ended up writing speculative fiction.

Science Fiction has always been my favorite, probably because of the major what if factor and how your imagination has so much freedom to play with the answer to the question. I did read a good deal of hard sci-fi in my late teens and after, but slowly gravitated to the softer side of things and have stayed there.

And on that note, I'd point you toward Trust, my long-time sci-fi favorite project.

Tuesday, May 7, 2019

Penguicon is always a great time

Last year I'd heard mention of this mysterious con in one of my NaNoWriMo groups. A place with low cost, multiple tracks, and a friendly environment for everyone. And free beer.

Is it wrong that that's the detail that sold me? Come on, it's a variety of really good Michigan Craft beer.

We had such a good time last year that we headed off to Penguicon again this past weekend. This year we gathered another friend for our room. I invited some author friends too. And again, I meet a bunch of great people and reconnected with those I'd met last year. It's three days of non-stop stuff to do. I'm still catching up on sleep. All that peopling saps a lot of energy.

One of the many fun things about Penguicon is gathering ribbons for your badge. My ribbons were getting so long that I was stepping on them, at which point, it's a generally accepted practice to either start rolling them up, wear them as a scarf or start placing them sideways. I did all of those at various points. Bathroom trips are particularly precious otherwise.

Ribbons are supplied both by the con and attendees and most everyone gets into it. Elevator rides turn into ribbon swapping festivities. Panelists lure attendees up to talk to them afterwards with ribbons. You can earn ribbons from the con staff by doing things throughout the con. Many of the attendee ones are inside jokes you'll never be in on, yet they're still funny in their own way. I was a big fan of "Safety Third!?". I handed out ribbons that said "I'd rather be reading", which at a con full of introverts, was quite true for most.

There are so many different things to do throughout the day! There are panels and activities going from 9am to midnight and beyond. Everything from programming, gaming, crafts, writing, anime, to a wide array of adult-oriented programming, such as the Saturday night Burlesque show.

One thing my tongue is still recovering from is the abundance of flavors of Liquid Nitrogen Alcohol Ice Cream. Oh man, the flavors! I believe this one is Mudslide. We tried Watermelon Pucker sorbet, Peach Cider with ginger sorbet, Chocolate mint, Spicy Chocolate, Rumchatta icecream as a root beer float and so many more. That last one was amazing, by the way. They're all sooooo cold, yet so good.  

The con does a wonderful job of offering an abundance of lit panels and support for the participating authors. They provide a staffed bookstore where we can stock our books so we can go have fun all weekend rather than sitting at a table to sell them ourselves. Did I mention they do this fee free? They do. The con staff is awesome. They also had an afternoon writer's reception for us with the best cookies ever. Freshly made. The chocolate in my chocolate chocolate chunk cookie was still melty. Yum!

The Westin Hotel is great. The rooms are quiet and the curtains actually make it dark. The beds are perfect and there are plenty of pillows. The hotel staff is super friendly and most of them get into the con by wearing fun tshirts or even getting in on the cosplay.

I presented three panels this year. One of which I didn't get a photo of, but they were all a lot of fun and well attended. We had some good discussions, and from the comments I received afterwards, offered helpful information to aspiring writers. Mission accomplished.



We also got to do readings.

As a word of warning, I highly recommend not going out to most of the room parties the night before or enjoying two nights of tongue numbing Liquid Nitrogen ice cream before doing a reading. Words are hard when you can't keep your eyes open and your tongue feels like it's twice it's size. The year before, I did my reading on Friday night and I think that was a far better plan than Sunday morning.

However, we made it through and had some laughs over my tongue tripping. People bought books later, so my performance must not have been too detrimental.

Will I be going back next year? Hell yes. If you're at all near the Southfield, MI area next year in May, I recommend you check it out too. Penguicon just might be your new favorite weekend getaway.

Wednesday, May 1, 2019

IWSG May

If you're not familiar with 

May. Already. While that's awesome because it's nice to finally see green outside and flowers blooming, it also feels like I'm missing several months from the year and I'm not sure where they went. Maybe they got lost in one of the many snowstorms or the heavy winds blew them away. 

I've been busy promoting Trust at lots of events. As you see, my schedule is pretty full this year. I've already marked a few events to try and some to drop from those I did this year. Keeping a hard copy calendar for this sort of thing has been a sanity saver. Usually all my organization on that front is on my phone calendar, but it's been super helpful to have something I can scribble notes on, plaster sticky notes to and get a good overall view of events I've applied for and those I've been accepted to.

Did you manage to be productive with writing over the winter? I seemed to be on a relative roll until the end of February. It's been about two months since I've reliably used my morning writing time for actual writing. While I have managed to get a couple short stories written and submitted, its mostly been promoting my new book, catching up on sleep (because I wasn't sleeping well for a while there), gathering notes for a few panels I'm speaking on next month, and organizing a couple author events I'm hosting. So productive in general, but not how I prefer to use that time.

This month's questions is: What was an early experience where you learned that language had power?

When I first started writing more seriously, as in trying to learn and get better rather than just spewing out words for fun, I explored fan fiction. This was a great place to get my feet wet with trying different types of storytelling and focusing on different things while romping about in an already established world.

I've always been an action and dialogue first kind of writer. It's adding the feels and details that I have to layer in later that I'm always working on. When I threw this particular short story together, I decided to use a mute character from the cast, which meant I couldn't rely on my old standby of dialogue to carry the story. I had to drop into emotion and body language right on the first draft. It worked. I made people cry.

From that story onward, I've tried to remember and employ the tidbits I learned about getting readers emotionally invested. And to use that power wisely - rather than killing characters left and right for the fun it.  

Thursday, April 18, 2019

Where do ideas come from

Today I'm visiting Diane Burton's blog to celebrate the release of Trust. Diane is my buddy at many local book events in West Michigan and beyond. She also has a new release this month and will be around soon to share that with you.

One of the questions I often get when talking to readers is: "Where to you get ideas for your books?"

Most of my ideas are just random thoughts that fester or moments of inspiration from the news or something that pops up in any given day. But in the case of Trust, the idea came from a short story I wrote in the early 80's. It was a short six page story about two teenagers in space. This was before the internet. Before home computers. Before I could reliably spell 'remember'. Rember. Though the whole freaking story. OMG, the spelling.

But the idea hung with me for years and I played with it, changing it here and there, sometimes drastically. Eventually I changed the point of view character from Anastassia to Vayen. Let me tell you, from one writer to another, get that figured out before you write the novel because it was a hellish rewrite full of headaches. However, I'm really glad I did it because it solved a lot of the issues I was having and I had a great time getting into Vayen's head.

The story that is published now, in no way resembles that short story or most of the earlier versions for that matter, but it was still the seed that launched the adventure in my mind. And no other novel I've written has given me that much grief or been with me this long.

The moral of the story is: don't throw stuff away and don't give up on an idea. You never know when it that little seed might trigger something else. It might not be the right time for it right now, but at some point, it may unfurl into something bigger that you really enjoy.

Get your copy here:
Amazon  /  Amazon UK   /  Barnes & Noble  /  Kobo  / Direct from the publisher
Add it on Goodreads  



Sunday, February 24, 2019

This weather blows

Quite literally. Today's winds are averaging around 30 MPH. It's cold. It's blustery. At least it's not snowing (at this moment). So far we've only lost power for a minute.

Most of the high winds overnight helped melt some of our current snow, so hey, that's a plus. As you can see we've lost a few pieces of trees, but nothing big or house endangering as of yet. The high winds are supposed to continue until tomorrow morning so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.


Earlier this week, we ventured over to Detroit, a two and half hour drive, to see Peter Murphy and David J perform a host of Bauhaus songs. I was fortunate to see Love and Rockets in concert in the early 90's, but never Bauhaus. It was funny to realize I still remembered almost all the words, despite not hearing many of these songs for roughly twenty years. What did I have to eat yesterday? Why am I in this room? What was that important thing someone just said two minutes ago? I often have no answers for that. So useful, the knowledge we retain.


Because I'm still sick...yes, still - it's down to being generally exhausted all the time and this persistent chest congestion though, so I'm feeling fear less likely to contaminate anyone - we splurged upgraded our general admission tickets to get balcony seating directly facing the stage. This seriously hurt my thrifty Dutch sensibilities, but was so worth it. Not only did it mean I wasn't spreading any lingering germs with the generally crammed together populace, but I got to sit down and have a clear view of everything with great sound. Saint Andrews Hall is a very cool venue and having the VIP lounge and bathrooms, along with seats and a table, was really nice. I did still get the true concert experience of having a large drunk guy (sitting) next to me that deserved a neon shirt saying 'say it don't spray it' and a super annoying chatty woman behind me whose purse kept knocking into my arm every few minutes as she leaned against the railing behind me to talk to some guy. But really, it was a great concert. Peter Murphy's voice is still dead on and amazing.

My intention to participate in the February edition of 30K in a month didn't pan out very well due to the fact my brain has been mostly mush and all I want to do it sleep. Being sick for nearly three weeks straight does tend to hamper the whole productivity thing. Instead, I've been working on a rewrite of a 10K word short story. It's going so very slow, but any progress is good so I'm not going to complain about it too loudly.

Since I haven't been very good at writing this month, I'm (also slowly) working my way through Nick Wilford's Corruption. I haven't read the first book, but it's been pretty easy to follow along.

Now then, I suppose I should get some writing done.


Wednesday, September 5, 2018

IWSG: September and a recharge

If you're not familiar with the Insecure Writers Support Group, check it out here

It has been a wild end to summer around here. I managed to take a few days of vacation after sending Trust off to the editor. We traveled over to the thumb of Michigan, having never visited there before. I don't mean to spoil it for you, but there isn't much there other than farmland and the shore of Lake Huron. In this case, that was fine with me as I really needed some time off from life to recharge. I spent most of my vacation buried in a book, which I haven't done in quite some time. That burst of reading cascaded into three more books and now I have four more on order that should be here in a few days. Not that my TBR stacks are running dry by any stretch of the imagination, but I found a new series to binge on: J.R. Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood. 

I also have a new (and very unplanned) exchange student. That's whole long story, but suffice it to say, we're only an interim host family and this is the straw that sent me off on a need for a reading binge to recharge my creative juices and vacation. 

Onward into the reason for this post... 


This month's question is: What publishing path are you considering/did you take, and why?

I've done both a small press and self publishing with novels. For short stories, I prefer the more traditional route of anthologies and magazines. 

As far as novels, for my first one, I wanted to get my feet wet in a more structured way so I went though the whole query letter and rejection loop until I got accepted by a small press. As it turns out that was a whole learning experience and I'm glad I took the time to do it rather than rushing off into self publishing. However, having figured out the strengths and weaknesses of small press publishing and how they aligned with my goals, I opted for self publishing my next three novels. My upcoming series, The Narvan, is back with the same small press. I find doing both gives me more options and yet a bit of credibility for those who don't hold self publishing in high regard. 

Friday, July 13, 2018

Allergies and Author Events

Where have I been?

Writing, editing, rewriting, more editing and pondering plot fixes. I was being so productive I forgot to come up for air and post here. That's sort of a good thing,  I guess?

Then I was busy getting ready for the Muskegon edition of my Michigan Authors at the Lakeshore event in the Lakeshore Art Festival. That took up all of last weekend. That was a great time. The weather was awesome. There were crowds of people and lots of crafts, art, and books to see.

Now I'm gearing up for the Holland edition, which will be held at the Park Theatre, right across from Art in the Park, on August 4. This one is even bigger than the Muskegon event, as far as authors to organize. There will be 34 of us, a theatre full of books. It should be a lot of fun...once I get past all the organizing.

Right after that, on August 11, I'll be at the Manistee Book Expo, held in the Ramsdell Theatre.

In the midst of organizing and writing, allergy season hit hard. The weather has been hot and dry, creating all kinds of dust and whatever else sets off the explosions in my head. Between blowing my nose, sleeping the yuck away, and the way groovy spacy feeling of allergy pills, my productivity is down to a dismal percentage.

So that's the state of things at the moment. I'm still alive, floating along (sometimes, it actually feels like floating), and attempting to get things done.

I hope summer is treating you well. Relax, be happy, and enjoy a good book.

Wednesday, June 6, 2018

IWSG: June and more free books

I've been busy editing and, for the past couple days worth of free time, catching up on the latest season of Supernatural. It was fortunate that I happened to check my email at lunch yesterday, after realizing I'd been ignoring it all week in favor of said previous activities, and realized the first Wednesday of the month was only a day away. I live in a time vacuum, I swear.

With the weather being nice (finally), I've been busy outside working in my gardens. For the past two weeks, I've been putting the finishing touches on the rock terraces (meaning I moved a LOT of rocks and plants and spread several yards of mulch) on half of my hillside flower garden. This past weekend I expanded my vegetable garden by 16 x 10 feet, built two new raised garden beds, filled them with soil and plants, and remulched the whole area. Who needs to go to the gym?

If you're looking for something to read, take a gander at selection in either of these two giveaways.
Fantasy, or Sci-fi and Fantasy short fiction

My Ask Me Anything wrapped up after a lot of questions. If there's anything you've wanted to know about me or my writing, it's probably answered there.

And now onto IWSG...

If you're not familiar with the Insecure Writers Support Group, check it out here.

This month's question is:
What's harder for you to come up with, book titles or character names?

Titles are by far more difficult to come up with. Character names usually come to me as I'm writing or I key mash until a string of letters looks interesting and tweak it from there to get the sound and feel of what I'm looking for to fit the story. Yes, that means my naming process is pretty methodical and well thought out. Ha! Because I'm not a planner for the most part, the vast majority of my characters are named before I get to know them and before I have an inkling what their true part in the story will be. It's like meeting a person, all you have to go on is a name and then you get to know them. Knowing this, the fact that names play an important role to the characters in both Sahmara and A Broken Race is a bit ironic.  

Titles, well, they don't usually hit me until the first round of edits when I get a full feel for what the story is really about. Its a theme I didn't originally set out to cover, a feeling, a character moment, a phrase, something that triggers an ah ha moment and poof, there's my title. The poof, makes it sound like an easy process, but its more often a long and painful slog wherein I gnash my teeth over the fact that the book may never have a title beyond Book 2 or Fantasy Story.

Which one is more difficult for you?

Monday, May 14, 2018

So many free books

Do you like free books? Well you're in luck! Check out these links for some great free fantasy and scif-fi reads. You can also find my book, Destiny Pills and Space Wizards there.


This promotion runs May 14-20 and includes both BookFunnel and Instafreebie books.


Need more books? Here are 24 more to choose from. This promotion runs until May 25.


Still need mooooore? Here are 119 Sci-fi, Fantasy and Horror titles to choose from. This promotion runs from May 15 to May 31st.


And if you've stocked up on books and want to have fun with some questions about writing, critiquing, gardening, chickens or hair color, I'll be over at Ask Me Anything from May 16-23 with answers. They may not be the right answers, but they're mine.

Thursday, May 3, 2018

IWSG: May and too many other things

So it would seem that yesterday was Wednesday. When did that pop up? I mean who puts a Wednesday right after Tuesday? And who put Wednesday so close to the beginning of the month?

Yes, I missed the
post day. One of these months I'll have some time to breathe and will have my crap together. This is not that month.

I've been busy preparing for Penguicon, both mentally and packing-wise. The prospect of full weekend of intense peopling is both exciting and terrifying at the same time. In part of that preparation, I opened my newly ordered copies of A Broken Race to a page with a typo. OMG, you've got to be freaking kidding me. And the super annoying thing is that it's a formatting typo. I use a laptop to do all things book, and occasionally the cursor isn't where I think it is so whatever key I hit applies somewhere else. In this case it was the backspace. Then come to find out, as took a deep breath and fixed that book file, a similar thing had happened right on the first page of Destiny Pills. So damn annoying. I love my laptop, but we're so not speaking right now.

On the heels of the random return and deleted character annoyance, I then see that the oh so helpful Createspace gods have added random blank pages and in one case, totally screwed up the entire page layout so now my margins are all wrong. And no, that didn't show up on the online proof. And of course I needed books in a hurry for this event and didn't have time to do a print proof and then order because my lovely daughter took so darn long (procrastinating teenagers, ugh) to do her drawings. So I apologize up front to anyone who purchases the slightly wonky versions this weekend.

I'm still trying to catch up on Blogging A to Z posts from all of you who visited throughout April. Too. Much. Going. On. Which brings me to this month's question:

Does this season inspire you to write more than others, or not?

Spring inspires me to get outside and clean up my flower beds, to build new raised garden boxes, to plant my garden, and to clean out my chicken coop. All of those things mean less time for writing. I'm so torn right now because spring is a super short season here, and made even shorter this year by almost a month thanks to a winter that wouldn't freaking quit, but I'm in the middle of edits on Trust. I want to be sitting here in my comfy chair sifting through editorial comments and making changes so that book can get into readers hands, but I also want to be outside doing all the things that need doing before it suddenly is 80 and my allergies make it hard to do outside things, because like, breathing is important or something. At this point, I'm slowly working on both things and shaking my fist and pretty much everything. Spring, you are a pretty, but stressful season.

Monday, April 30, 2018

A to Z - All Things Writing: Z The Satisfying Ending

Welcome to the Blogging A to Z Challenge, where, this month, I'll be focusing on all things writing. This may be a random jumping around of topics within my theme, but hopefully something somewhere will be useful to someone. (V is for vague - see that last sentence.) Check out all the participants here . Now, lets get on with today's letter.

Z is for The Satisfying Ending

I'm sure I've harped on endings before, maybe even last year, but it bears repeating. Stories, all stories, should have a satisfying end. But it's got a sequel. It's part of a series. I don't care. End it. If a book doesn't end in a manner that leaves me a least mostly fulfilled, I'm not ever going to pick up book two.

It's fine to leave some subplots a bit open ended. A happily ever after for now, is perfectly acceptable. We don't need everything tied up in a neat little bow. But we do need closure. The main plot of that particular book should be resolved. The mystery needs to be solved. An aspect of the big bad must be defeated. The couple should get together. You get the idea.

Books that just end like the writer dropped dead at the end of whatever sentence stands at the end of the novel end up denting my wall and go in the donation pile. Books should not end with (...to be continued).

Short stories might end with a surprise, a twist. They don't often have a shiny wrapped up bow on top ending. A short story is a much smaller investment of a reader's time so more of an ah-ha moment is sometimes all it takes to be satisfying. A novel, however, needs more closure. We're invested in characters, in the plots, we want to see things through. So make sure your books end. Your readers will thank you.

Thank you for joining me on this year's A to Z adventure. I hope you found a few useful posts this month. Good luck with your writing endeavors throughout the year and I hope you'll stop back to see where I am in mine. 


Would you like a free e-book? This April, I'm giving away free copies of my new anthology, Destiny Pills & Space Wizards. Claim your copy here: https://claims.instafreebie.com/free/vhJFWpLL Enter code atozpromo
Prefer paperback? The print book goes live on April 20. Reviews are always appreciated.





Saturday, April 28, 2018

A to Z - All Things Writing: You Know What You Mean

Welcome to the Blogging A to Z Challenge, where, this month, I'll be focusing on all things writing. This may be a random jumping around of topics within my theme, but hopefully something somewhere will be useful to someone. (V is for vague - see that last sentence.) Check out all the participants here . Now, lets get on with today's letter.

Y is for You Know What You Mean

The biggest issues many writers have is getting what is in their head onto the page. You know what you mean. You know your story and your characters. We've already covered how beta readers and critique groups can help point these areas out. But you can find some of them too.

The best way to do that is to give yourself some time away from your story so that you can approach it with fresh eyes. It's tempting to churn out a draft, tweak it with a few edits and toss it out into the world but your story could be so much better if you give it a little time to age and grow.

So finish you story and put it away. Go write something else. Be that a short story, a few short stories, another entire novel or edit another novel. The point is to get your mind working on something entirely different. When you're ready, be that weeks, months, or however much longer, read your story as if you've never read it before.

You might be surprised at what parts you enjoy and what you find yourself skimming over. Or what you thought you had explained that now you're wondering about. Maybe you don't remember what all the characters looked like or how they were involved with one another from the notes you had on paper or in your head that never really made into the story. Wasn't there backstory on a character? I swear this scene was going somewhere important, but I can't remember why I kept it. Guess what? You can do something about all of that. Put those things into the story.

Read that story aloud, either yourself or have your computer read it for you. You'll probably find missing words that you swear where there because you know what you mean.



Would you like a free e-book? This April, I'm giving away free copies of my new anthology, Destiny Pills & Space Wizards. Claim your copy here: https://claims.instafreebie.com/free/vhJFWpLL Enter code atozpromo
Prefer paperback? The print book goes live on April 20. Reviews are always appreciated.