About This Writing Stuff…

This week, Anne R. Allen warns us against career-killing marketing tactics, Ruth Harris shows authors how to build a better bio, and Beth Barany provides strategies for developing characters and plot.

At Writer Unboxed, Kathryn Craft offers sage advice on handling copy edits while over at the Kill Zone, James Scott Bell helps us determine when our book is ready for prime time.

Angela Ackerman explains how to use setting as more than a mere backdrop and my favorite article of this batch is Lauren Sapala’s timely (for me) discussion of the paralyzing stress that can occur when writers become too “attached to outcome.”

All that and a little more. Enjoy!

How Bad Marketing Can Destroy Your Author Brand, Lose Friends, and Influence Nobody by Anne R. Allen

How to Plan, Write, and Develop a Book: Word Count Goals for the Three Acts of Your Novel, Memoir, or Non-Fiction Book by Mary Carroll Moore

6 Ways Your Author Bio Can Help You Sell Books by Ruth Harris

Top Digital Marketing Takeaways from U.S. Book Show 2022 by AJ Jack via BookBub

Copy Edits: To Challenge or Concede? by Kathryn Craft

When Is Your Book Ready to be Published? by James Scott Bell

7 Essential Tips to Plan Your Novel Like a Pro by Beth Barany via Anne R. Allen

Serialization Rights for Traditional and Self-Published Authors by Matt Knight at Sidebar Saturdays

Publishing Contracts 101: Beware Internal Contradictions by Victoria Strauss at Writer Beware

Setting Description Mistakes that Weaken a Story by Angela Ackerman

Stressed About Your Writing? What’s Really Going On (and How to Get Over It) by Lauren Sapala

 

 

Pass a Microsoft Exam, Buy a Car…

I’m excited and relieved to report that on Tuesday, May 31, I passed the second of three Microsoft exams toward my Enterprise Administrator Expert certification.  After taking the next week off to remind myself how it feels to have a life, I’ll begin studying for the third and final exam. If all goes well, I’ll schedule that for the end of July.

Later that same Tuesday, after months of research into various midsize SUVs, I traded in my 16-year-old Hyundai Santa Fe for a 2019 Hyundai Tucson. I’m still learning all of its “bells and whistles” and while it’s only a four-cylinder engine (where the Santa Fe was six), the Tucson is a smooth ride with excellent handling.

Hyundai Tucson
Pass a Microsoft exam, buy a car!

Hyundai Tucson

So what’s new on the writing front? Unfortunately, not much since the time I had previously dedicated to writing is now consumed by taking Microsoft courses and studying for exams.

However, I managed to complete a new ghost story in April called “Where the Skeletons are Buried” involving Miranda Lorensen, my psychic-medium character who was last seen in my 2018 novella, Like Mother, Like Daughters and her ghost hunting team introduced in my 2013 novel, By Your Side. Work with these characters again was like reuniting with old friends. “Where the Skeletons are Buried” is being shopped around.

I’m also re-outlining the next full length novel involving Miranda and her team. One of the original plot threads, while compelling, gave me pause in light of our current sociopolitical climate. The more I developed that part of the story, the greater was my discomfort. So, I scrapped it and am moving in a different direction.

Lastly, I’m waiting on responses about two different short stories from two different editors and a publisher that accepted a detective story from me last year for publication this year has completed their move from Delaware to California and should be ramping up their operations again in July.

Stay tuned for more updates on these projects.