There are some things that work plain better than others, that resonate with your needs better than others. When it comes to writing, I have tons of resources that I use on occasion, some that I use repeatedly and a few that I use all the time.

This is my Top Ten List of Writing Resources for the fall of 2016 (with some bonuses and honorary mentions). (more…)

It sits there, right at the end of your book. Your author biography[note]Author biography, author bio, and author’s bio all seem to be legitimate spellings. So I’ll mix and the search engines will love me.[/note]. That little blurb where you’re supposed to put interesting facts about yourself. But what do you put in it? And, more importantly, why?

Because an author bio has but one function – and it’s got nothing to do with introducing yourself.

Here’s why. (more…)

Some years ago I lost all of my writing in a hard drive crash. I’m not crying over spilled milk – the writing was rather horrible – but it did set me thinking about redundancy and safety. I started doing backups.

At first, I did backups to CDs. That worked all right, until I thought I had done a backup and formatted my hard drive. Of course, I didn’t have any CD with my latest stuff on it. And then, when my computer crashed and I had to reformat it, I lost a few months of work as well.

So instead of CDs, I started using an external drive to backup all of my files. Which worked fine, except that it’s a pain in the behind to hook it up all the time. And I didn’t want to leave it hooked up and out in the open because part of the reason of doing backups was to protect me in case my computer got stolen.

But, two years ago, I found my main backup and sync solution. And last month I found the perfect way to work across multiple platforms, multiple computers, in complete safety, without having to do anything. (more…)

So you’ve got this great idea: world championship weightlifter Barry Hotter is approached by an enchanted dumbbell and invited to the magical Mugwart’s Academy for Jocks. There he learns ancient Tibetan psi-powers that help him lift weights with his mind, finds true love, and defends the world of non-weightlifters from the evil Lord Lift-a-Mort.

Question: should you expect a call from J.K. Rowling’s lawyers[note]Or, since Rowling’s a Britt, solicitors.[/note]?

That’s where copyright and intellectual property law comes into play.
(more…)

So I’m a stage 2 writer. Or maybe early stage 3. I don’t know. And until I read Dean Wesley Smith’s “Stages of a Fiction Writer”, I had no idea what any of that meant.

Stages of a Fiction Writer is a short book. Very short. It doesn’t have very much concrete content. And yet it’s eminently readable. I should know, I’ve read it twice now. (more…)

If you want to be a successfully published writer, all you need are four words.

Start at the Top.

You can debate what successful, published or writer means (do self-published writers count? do exposure markets count?), but I’ll define it very simply: a successfully published writer is a writer who makes money from her writing. Simple as that. So how do you achieve it?

Start at the top.

That’s it. Start at the top. Start by pitching your top market, the best paying one, the one that responds the quickest, the one which has the most readers, or favorable reviews, or chocolate chip cookies. Doesn’t matter how you define your top market. Just find it and start there.

Why? Because 1 percent of something is a million, billion times better than 100 percent of nothing.

And yet, most writers won’t submit to their top market. They’ll throw away their chance at achieving their dream before they even try. I know, I’ve been there. And I tossed away a lot of chances before buckling down and sending out to top markets. And getting published. And if I can, you can, too. Here’s how. (more…)

So you’ve got an amazing character. Let’s say she’s a combat diver for a secret government agency. And she’s battling her sister who’s a nurse-come-assassin. Everything is set to be awesome.

Except you can’t figure out the right setting.

Finding the right setting is hard. If the difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug[note]That’s Mark Twain, baby![/note] then the difference between the right setting and the almost right setting is the difference between an amazing book and a blah one. (more…)

I finished Leah Cutter‘s The Beginning Professional Writer in one sitting, even though she explicitly wrote not to.

OK, it’s a short book. It’s got a bowl of letter cereal on the cover. It looks like it’s been designed as a junior student essay.

It’s also the most eminently quotable, fact packed book I’ve read in a long time. And I do mean that as a compliment because it is easy to read, too. And it will tell you everything you need to know as a beginning professional writer. (more…)

Mary Robinette Kowal is an award-winning novelist and puppeteer. Her stories have appeared in Strange Horizons, Asimov’s, Clarkesworld, and several Year’s Best anthologies. Her debut novel, Shades of Milk and Honey (Tor 2010) was nominated for the Nebula, she’s won three Hugos and the 2008 Campbell for best new writer.

Here, she talks about how she learned to write good stories reliably.

In 2000 Mary Robinette Kowal suffered a wrist injury, forcing her to take a break from performing. Instead she picked up on her old hobby of writing fiction as a way to keep in touch with her niece and nephew and, in 2004, decided to start submiting her work to markets.

“I have always worked in the arts and my training was such that artists should be paid,” says Mary Robinette Kowal. “I rediscovered that I enjoyed writing, and it’s a little crass, but my thought was ‘how do I get paid for this?'” (more…)

I’m a pantser, the type of writer who loves to go off unprepared and discover the story as I write it. Every single work on the technical side of writing I’ve read up to this point has, more or less explicitly, spoken of outlines. Made me feel like an idiot for not being able to use one.

Along comes “Writing into the Dark: How to Write a Novel without an Outline” and it’s all about pantsing, or writing into the dark as Dean Wesley Smith calls it. Reading it was like being six years old and finding the secret hiding place of the cookie jar. (more…)