Tag: featured
From Writing Blogs to Books and Beyond
Once, when I pitched my Filipino food cookbook idea to an editor of a big-time publishing company, he curtly cut me off and arrogantly said “You’re a niche market. Ethnic food is a hard sell.” I felt awful and humiliated. I felt unworthy and unsure of myself. It hurt like hell to be rejected. But […]
The Art of the Writer
Writing is a solitary activity requiring perseverance, practice, and patience. As a book blogger and columnist, I’ve interviewed debut novelists to New York Times bestselling authors. Surprisingly, there’s not much difference between the two. Simply stated … each has a story to tell by translating thoughts and extraordinary ideas into words on a page. Granted […]
When The Men Were Gone
Author Marjorie Herrera Lewis’ debut novel is a beautiful story of Tylene Wilson, a Texas high school football coach in 1944. Telling Tylene’s story was result of the author’s own experiences. Marjorie Herrera Lewis feels she could not have told Tylene’s story had she not known what it was like covering college and professional football […]
The Power Of Music In Writing
Most writers passionately declare that they either Do or Do Not listen to music when they write—the issue is about as divisive as plotters vs. pantsers or people who like pineapple on pizza vs. those who don’t. If you’ve never tried writing with music or fall into that Do Not camp, I’m here to encourage […]
The Book of Ceremony: Shamanic Wisdom for Invoking the Sacred in Everyday Life
I have been passionate about teaching people in our modern day world about the power of bringing ceremony into our lives to restore our connection to the divine within and the power of the universe. Performing ceremonies has been a core practice in shamanism for tens of thousands of years. Ceremony helps us navigate the […]
3 Common Plotting Mistakes to Avoid When Writing a Novel
After plotting, writing, and selling over fifteen novels and teaching thousands of other authors how to plot their own novels, I’ve seen (and made) several plotting mistakes that can quickly cause a story to fall flat. These are fairly common mistakes that countless authors make. But fortunately, they’re also mistakes that are easily fixable. […]
How Dedicating A Whole Year To Write About Happiness Changed My Life
How dedicating a whole year to write about happiness changed my life, turned into a book, and is changing lives as we speak. Hi, My name is Jacqueline Pirtle. I am an energy healer, mindfulness and happiness coach, and author of the best-selling book 365 Days of Happiness. I help people pull their whole being […]
What Remains: Tanya Marquardt
Tanya Marquardt is an award-winning playwright based in Brooklyn, author of the newly released memoir, STRAY: Memoir of a Runaway (published by Little A, Amazon’s literary and non-fiction imprint on September 1). Tanya’s story was recently featured in The Huffington Post and CBC, and her book has received early praise from Publishers Weekly. Told with […]
Lose The Plot
I find it funny how the words ‘plotting’ and ‘downfall’ are so often to be found in the same sentence, because in my writing career, I often feel that it’s plotting – out of all the many elements of fiction-writing – that really is my nemesis. I HATE plotting. I just can’t do it, […]
Bernie McGill On Writing
I’ve embarked on a new writing project recently. It may be a novel. I’m hoping it will be a novel, but at the moment, it’s a few thousand words of stray comments, observations, reflections and responses to a fictional situation by a fictional character in a real place that I know fairly well and am […]
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