Read More to Write Better: 3 Types of Books Every Thriller Author Should Read

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Read More to Write Better: 3 Types of Books Every Thriller Author Should Read

Did you know April is Drop Everything and Read (D.E.A.R.) month? Me neither! I’ve recently started reading every morning before I do anything else. I was tired of getting smacked in the face by my book as I fell asleep reading before going to be at night. Please tell me I’m not alone on this!

It turns out that reading every morning for about an hour is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I’m amazed at how much I’ve read and learned. I’ve heard many successful authors say that if you want to be a good writer, you need to be a good reader, and I feel like all the extra reading I’ve been doing has really helped me be more critical of my own writing. Well, I’m always critical of myself, but this is a much healthier version.

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Happy World Poetry Day 2019!

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Happy World Poetry Day 2019!

When people think of poems, they often go straight to love poems, but there are many different forms of poetry. You could say there’s something for everyone! I thought it would be fun to share the beginning of my rhyming picture book designed to teach kids the value of budgeting and taking good care of their money. It will also be fun to look back on this post and see how much my illustrations have changed!

Enjoy!

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Want to Write a Book? This Online Group Coaching Program Will Help You Do It

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Want to Write a Book? This Online Group Coaching Program Will Help You Do It

Many people dream of writing and publishing a book ‘someday’, but statistics show only about 2% of those people actually realize their dream. I’m going to share a secret weapon with you that’s helped me with my books, and I know it will help you too!

It’s very fitting that I’m writing this post on March 8, 2019, International Women’s Day. It’s the final day of the Women In Publishing Summit, hosted by one of my favourite women in publishing, Alexa Bigwarfe.

Two years ago, I met Alexa after I won a spot in her group coaching program for writers as part of an online summit I was speaking at. Talk about divine intervention—I didn’t even know there were prizes for speakers or that one of them was for writers. I had just published my first book and had started working on my first novel, so I was super excited to meet Alexa and learn about her program.

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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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