Z is for Zooming. Welcome to the last day of the A-Z Challenge. Here’s a special treat for you: a guest post by blogging friend Juneta Key. Ronel has asked me to talk about Author Spotlights and Guest posts as part of a series of posts in her April’s A to Z Challenge theme. Why …
Tag: A to Z Challenge 2018
Why Not? #Rottweiler #Writerslife
Y is for “Y-not”. My blog is taken over by one of my Rottweilers… Tony here. You’ll remember me from various photos and stories my human posts on her blog, various social media stuff and even as a character in a book. Did you see what I did with today’s letter? No? I used my …
X-Factor: Beta Readers and Critique Partners
X is for X-factor. As writers, we know that we need an extra set of eyes on our work. But who should we trust? To answer that question, here’s a guest post by author friend Stephanie Faris. Writing can be a lonely profession. Even if you enjoy those hours of toiling away on a piece …
Writing Conferences, Retreats and Workshops
W is for Workshops. Do you need it? Is it worth it? Everyone has their own opinion on this. Writing Retreats What is it? A weekend/week-long event where you get to be free from family, distractions, obligations and your normal routine by being in a relaxing atmosphere that allows you to dig deep into the creative …
Vying for Attention
V is for Vendors. Your book is constantly vying for attention – no matter the vendor. There are different ways to sell your book. There are even different formats to sell your book in. Currently I have one book published in Afrikaans. By July, it will be available in English too. But that one book …
Understanding Character
U is for Understanding. There are characters you would love to spend more time with outside the book; books you only read for the characters; stories you stretch out just to spend more time with the characters you love. Story is important, of course, but characters… They are the reason we stick around. There are different …
Tech Tips for Writers
T is for “Tech”. I don’t know about you, but sometimes the tech side of the writing business has me a little, ah, crazy. So I asked Jacqui Murray — the Tech Teacher — to help out a bit. Thank you to Ronel (at Ronel the Mythmaker) for inviting me to talk about my favorite topic: …
The Importance of Seeing Yourself in a Book #diversity
S is for Seeing. People are always trying to define what diversity in fiction means. Well, I read an article by Rain Sivertsen on her blog Writing Up My Serotonin and realised for the first time what diversity in fiction should mean. Here’s Rain’s guest post. “Can you remember the first time you ever recognized yourself in a book?” …
Interview about Reimaginings Books
R is for Reimaginings. I know, I like to focus on my own writing adventures when I can. I’ve already told you all that two of my short stories were published in Cinderella Reimagined. And, of course, there are plenty more opportunities to come. To explain that, I did an interview with Anna Jailene Aguilar. How …
The Perfect Query Letter
Q is for Query Writers know how difficult it is to write a good query letter. Opinions and advice differs from source-to-source. So I decided to go and ask someone who actually works with query letters (and the slush pile) from day-to-day to tell us how it really works. Go ahead, Hoda. Hello! I was …