Since March, I have been on 81 podcasts, assuming I have not miscounted. In every one, they ask me how I became a writer, and I’ve answered a lot of different ways, but the one I keep coming back to is that I never knew that wasn’t what you were supposed to do. When I
Love Scrivener but hate plotting your book? I’ve turned my advanced 24-chapter novel writing cheatsheet into a free, downloadable Scrivener template you can use for your own writing projects. This video will walk you through it. Get the Scrivener novel outlining template (download and unzip the .zip folder – then open the Scivener...
Need a free plotting template to help outline your novel? Want to write your book using Google docs? I’ve just created a detailed document you can copy to your own account and use to map out your book – click the link below to download now. PS. My novel-plotting outline is a little different from The 3 secrets to book marketing...
If you’ve been following me for awhile, you may know I’m unfortunately cavalier and careless in any regards – I like to think of myself as a pirate or a rebel, and that sometimes gets me in trouble. This year I’ve been working with a new team of writers to put out more content around The 3 secrets to book marketing...
A few days ago my friend said to me “I’m just so frustrated that when I try I still screw up.” I smiled at him and said “Of course you do. That’s the whole point.” And it’s true. Doing nothing leads to making no mistakes, but any time you try ANYTHING, you are going to
A lot of authors – almost all I’ve talked to – are very cautious about the money. Several writers have told me they don’t want to make money with their writing, even after publishing several novels. They don’t want to make a living with their writing, because then it would be a job; if they The 3 secrets to book...
When I decided I wanted to be a writer, I got my hands on everything I could about plotting, prose, story and character development and the art of creative writing. Here’s what I learned: the majority of books from famous writers are self-reflecting memoirs with a handful of good life lessons. Inspirational, but not useful. Although...
One of the interesting things about insomnia is that you have all sorts of extra time to do things that you would never imagine doing in your entire life, like adding up all the costs of your novels against all the costs of your graphic novels. But, that is the world I live in many
A couple summers ago I decided to make a video series for teens who wanted to write novels. It was a free program and we had over a thousand students. But I realized, actually, it’s probably my best summary of all my writing advice and ideas, because I *tried* to keep things simple and organized. The 3 secrets to book marketing...
In the past couple of months, I’ve been on A LOT of podcasts, and most of them haven’t come out yet. I’ve been recording 3-5 a week, and sometimes up to 10 a week for the past few months. People have often asked me how I do it, so I’m just going to make this The 3 secrets to book marketing, and a haunted castle tour...
I planned to spend my summer indoors quietly catching up on my backlist of YA fantasy and scifi novels and maybe doing a bit of book editing. But I’ve also been wishing I had a way to help out more and share my expertise. I practically grew up at summer camps, spending 3 months a The 3 secrets to book marketing, and a haunted castle...
I was just talking with somebody in a thread who was complaining about how nobody wants to help promote their stuff, even though they promote other people. Meanwhile, they were defensive to everybody in the thread, and their grammar was horrible. Like so bad that you could barely understand what they were saying. So, I’m
