Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Can You Write Science Fiction that Will Survive My Scoff-O-Meter? I won’t mince words here. I always hated sci-fi. There. I’ve said it. I realize those are gasps of disbelief (and yes, even horror) emanating from all over…
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > How do I go about writing a memoir? As an editor, I often get asked, “What’s the difference between an autobiography and a memoir?” In framing my answer, I sometimes reply, “All baseballs are round, but not all…
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Submit only when your work is ready, not when your family or friends think you should. Sometimes, the most well-meaning folks can do the greatest harm to an aspiring writer. If Great Aunt Harriet insists your writing is…
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > We’ve talked about many ways to use idea starters. Most of the time they don’t need to be based on fancy systems with lots of features. It just takes old school, go-to tools that you can pull out…
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > An offshoot of mining for stories is mapping ideas. For me, it started as a way to think about and control how much money I make on my stories. Those of us who write for publication have all…
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > If you are like me, writing can be a series of stops and starts. It is all a part of the process. I have a ton of ideas that may have been great but as I started writing,…
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > The Hunt for Good Ideas Last week, we talked about having a system in place to keep your ideas organized, now it’s time to dig deep into where you find them. Sometimes the best ideas show up when…
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > As we start a new year, we also often face the big scary thing—a blank page of a new project. If you’re lucky, you already have an idea for the next story, novel or essay in mind. But…
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Some years ago, an aspiring novelist told me his main character had a penchant for speaking in song lyrics. I found this idea intriguing—and certainly quirky … although it could get annoying both for the other characters and…
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > You’ve done your outline, carefully completed extensive research, and fleshed out your protagonist, antagonist, and assorted minor characters. You’ve battled your literary demons, outlasted extreme bouts of writer’s block, written your book, and received glowing feedback from several…
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Last week I touched on how I began writing fiction—and how my first two characters (Gary and Michaela) dropped in on me, unannounced, in freshman English class. Today I’ll unpack more of my writing process. When I write,…
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > The Method to My Madness—Sort Of I often get asked about my process. How do you write your novels? Where do you begin? How do you keep going? And what do you do once you’re finished? Great series…
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Today our guest blogger, Chaunie Brusie, is profiling successful freelance writer and mother of three, Mary Sauer. Mary has been published with sites like Headspace, Romper, and She Knows. She’s also an experienced ghostwriter and content creator and…
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > Not too long ago, I was burning with jealousy whenever I would come across a writer’s byline. “Why her?” I would think, “how did she break into freelance writing?” as I donned my scrubs and got ready for…
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > You sit down to your computer, the entire world literally at your fingertips, your hot cup of coffee next to you, determined to crank out some serious writing, when the next thing you know, it happens: Two hours…
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > I’m about to tell you something that may shock you, titillate you, maybe even horrify you, but it is my truth and I am willing to speak it— In the past six years as a freelance writer, I…
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > We’ve talked about voice, tone, and humor. We’ve also discussed viewpoint. But how do we make it all work seamlessly? And can you use the same tools in nonfiction as you do in your fiction writing? It is…
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > It’s coming! Are you ready? You’re probably asking, “What’s coming?” Why, National Novel Writing Month, of course. It rolls around every November, that magical month when writers all across this great land of ours shut out every other…
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Cours Catalog > Out of all the style tools we describe in this series on tone and voice, interjecting humor is probably the most difficult to pull off well. One reason is that we all see “funny” with different lenses. What…
Facebook Twitter We teach our students how to write and get published! View our Course Catalog > We’ve talked about “voice” now it is time to meet its twin sister, “tone.” If you are writing for publication, or for a specific publication, no matter what the genre, and you strike a tone that is too…
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