• For Writers

    Dream Crate: A Loot Crate for Writers!

    Loot Crate is a subscription service that sends out monthly boxes of cool, fun, nerdy stuff on different pop culture themes themes (they have a Wizarding World box, for instance; monthly Harry Potter-related treats!). They’re reaching out to people and asking them to create their own Dream Crates, an imaginary box of things we’d put together if we were compiling our own subscription crate.

    I would love to get a monthly box of subscription goodies for writers. Notebooks! Candles! Cute pens! There are so many options for boxes — aaand I’m afraid I’ve gone a bit overboard and created a few Dream Crates. Consider this three sample months of a Subscription Box for Writers:

    Box #1: Write! Now!

    This is a box of motivation, to get your butt in a seat and a pencil in your hand! We’ve got an encouraging notebook that reminds you “That Novel Isn’t Going to Write Itself”, accompanied by a pencil that urges you to “Get Stuff Done”, a sticker reminding you to “Stay Up and Write”, and an “Eat, Sleep, Write” tote bag to store it all in!

  • Blog

    Beautiful People Couple’s Edition!

    This month’s Beautiful People, a link-up for writers hosted by Cait @ PaperFury and Sky @ Further Up and Further is all about couples. 

    Full disclosure: I meant to post this yesterday, Valentine’s Day. Wouldn’t that have been perfect? A romance-themed post for the most romantic day of the year? Well. I was too busy eating my weight in chocolate and heart-shaped pizza to even think of making this post. BUT, it is still February, I still have pink paper hearts hanging all over my house, so it is still as good a time as any to answer questions about my favorite couple in my WIP!

    First, we have Ol.

    Brown hair, beard, square jaw, perpetually growling, usually caked in a layer of grime, great lover and drawer of maps, depthless fount of information, has little to no patience, gets things done.

    And then Simon.

    Artist, working as an elementary school art teacher, messy black hair, glasses, cinnamon roll, sweet as candy, bitingly sarcastic, self-sacrificing, needs to learn to stand up for himself, kind as can be.

    Now, onto the questions!

  • For Writers

    Resist. Persist. Write Like a Decent Human Being.

    All right, my writing lovelies. It is 2017. And even though so much of the news feels like we’re being dragged, kicking and screaming, back in time, every one of us writing, publishing, creating stories, putting art out into the world, can do our part to make sure that the progress we’ve made, the things we’ve built, the norms we’ve shattered and the fights we’ve started don’t all come crumbling down.

    So this is my advice. Advice for how to keep writing like it’s 2017. How to write stories that are responsible. How to write stories that push the wheel of time forward and not crank it back. This is my advice, ten easy tips, for how to write like a decent human being.

  • For Writers

    Sitting Down to Write: How to Start When You’re Stuck

    We all know the feeling. You’ve got a scene in your head you want to write, but your brain isn’t working. Your fingers won’t cooperate. Maybe it’s your keyboard that has it out for you. Whatever the case, you can’t think. You want to start, but you’re stuck.

    Here are a couple of tricks I find really handy for that first half-hour when you’ve sat at your desk, opened your laptop or your notebook, and gone “… oh no.”

    1. Make a list of sensory words to put you in the mindset of your scene.

    What’s your character seeing? Hearing? Smelling? Touching? Say I’m writing a scene where my main character is running from a monster in a rainstorm. I might make a list like this:

    mud, muck, slippery, splatter, pouring, shoes squelching, shivering, sheets of rain, buckets, splashed, slipped; snarling, slobbering, growling, thundering paws; spikes of lightning, blinding, flash, silver; panting, whimpering, skidding, falling, crashing

    This’ll help you visualize the scene and get into the headspace.