Writing Tips from Author K. Kris Loomis

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Writing Tips from Author K. Kris Loomis

K. Kris Loomis was one of the first authors I virtually met in a Facebook group when I was just getting started on my self-publishing journey. I read How to Sneak More Yoga Into Your Life some of her short story collections and instantly fell in love with her writing style and sense of humour.

I’ve enjoyed watching Kris’s progress as a self-published author since meeting her in 2016. In the past year alone, Kris wrote and publish two novels and the non-fiction book, Surviving Revision. Kris’s guest posts are some of the most popular on my site, so I knew I had to interview her and share her tips!

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Is Your Writing Hobby Actually a Business?

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Is Your Writing Hobby Actually a Business?

Is your writing hobby actually a business? And does it really matter? Absolutely! Especially if you want to save a bit of tax while you’re getting your business up and running.

So you’ve been earning a bit here and there with your self-published books or maybe bloggers have been paying you to write posts for them, but when you look at the money you’ve spent to publish those books or the tools you’ve paid for to run your freelance writing business, you realize you haven’t broken even, so you decide not to include your writing “business” on your taxes.

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12 Days of Planning a Novel: Maintaining Order AND Flexibility (Part 2)

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12 Days of Planning a Novel: Maintaining Order AND Flexibility (Part 2)

Woohoo! It’s the final day in 12 Days of Planning a Novel. I’ve had a lot of fun writing this series and I’m a little sad it’s coming to an end, but I hope it’s helped you create an amazing novel outline that will help you breeze through writing your novel.

Today I want to talk a bit more about staying organized while still having the flexibility to make changes in your novel outline without causing yourself a lot of extra work. My last post focused on how to do this using sticky notes or recipe cards. This post is for those of you that prefer to use as little paper as possible.

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12 Days of Planning a Novel: Maintaining Order AND Flexibility (Part 1)

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12 Days of Planning a Novel: Maintaining Order AND Flexibility (Part 1)

Just two days left to go in 12 Days of Planning a Novel. If you’re like me, you probably have tons of notes for your outline but you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed. As you’ve been working through this series, you’ve made a lot of additions and maybe some changes. Your tidy notes now have arrows and scribbles all over the place.

Don’t worry, these last two posts are going to show you how to organize your outline while maintaining the flexibility that’s often required when writing a novel. Part 1 will focus on the physical methods you can use to do this and in the next post, Part 2, I will discuss some digital ways to do this.

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12 Days of Planning a Novel: Hooks and Cliffhangers

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12 Days of Planning a Novel: Hooks and Cliffhangers

If you’ve read all the posts in my 12 Days of Planning a Novel series, I really appreciate you hanging in there with me. We are so close to being ready to start drafting a novel! There’s just one last thing I want to talk about: hooks and cliffhangers. Okay, maybe that is two things!

When I really started enjoying the thriller genre, it was because of author Greg Iles. He is a master at creating hooks and cliffhangers and if you feel like you struggle in this area, I highly recommend his books. I almost never stop reading at the end of a chapter because I have to know what happened.

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12 Days of Planning a Novel: Setting as a Character

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12 Days of Planning a Novel: Setting as a Character

Today I’m going to cover another tip to help beef up your outline. I know by this point, you are probably itching to get writing your novel, but unless you are a pantser, which I don’t think you would be reading this post if you are, you’ll appreciate having a very detailed outline once you start writing.

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12 Days of Planning Your Novel: Subplots

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12 Days of Planning Your Novel: Subplots

Adding subplots to your novel is a really great way to make your story more interesting as well as help you hit your word count goal. So far in this series, 12 Days of Planning Your Novel, I’ve covered figuring out what to write about, conducting research, character development, story vs. plot, starting your outline, creating conflict, and using other stories as inspiration. Let’s talk about the importance of subplots and how you can add them to your outline in a natural way.

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12 Days of Planning Your Novel: Story Inspiration

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12 Days of Planning Your Novel: Story Inspiration

At this point in my series, 12 Days of Planning Your Novel, you probably have a pretty good outline but you might be wondering if you have enough ideas to write a full length novel. Don’t worry! The next few posts in this series will provide you with a few more ways you can add scenes to your outline, so when it comes time to write your novel, you’ll have plenty to work from.

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