Interweaving Your Novel’s Themes And Subthemes Part VI of the 8-Part BRING YOUR NOVEL TO LIFE Series When you’re writing a book, you want every page to drag the reader to the next one, even if she’s late for work, even if it’s two o’clock in the morning and he needs to be up at six, even if the plane has landed and your weary traveller really must get bags in hand and get off the plane. You want...

Impulse Writing for Better Ad Headings Writing headlines for your ads is the most important part of your online presence. When posting your ad to classified sites, directories, message boards, newsgroups or mailing lists, the only part of your ad that is showing is the heading. So, what your heading says will make the difference between your ad being read or being……………… ………………..passed right on...

Intelligent Optimism Wins In Today’s World The reality of today’s world seems to leave little room for optimism. Almost every news story can lead because it does bleed. We hear of critical food shortages in Africa, daily gang deaths on city streets, the profiteering from child pornography, and the climatic disasters prompted by global warming. Health care costs move up faster than a hummingbird i...

Influence Your Audience With Your Story Using These 4 Tips As a storyteller, what you’re doing when you tell a story is painting a picture. The part of your anatomy that you use most when telling this story is your imagination. And, it’s just amazing that how little of it you have to use to get your readers interested in your story. Here are just four tips to help you. 1. Make your audience FEEL...

Indecision Indecision oftentimes hinders us from achieving goals we have set for ourselves. Indecision can cause regrets. How many times have you said to yourself, “If only I…” or “I wish I had…” or “If I only did it another way, then…” Where there is indecision, there is no resolution. Instead of being convicted to a decision, a stand or a principle, indecision causes us to ‘swing’ from one sid...

In a Rut or Blocked: 9 Tips to Help You Get Back to the Business of Writing You’re sitting at your desk, staring at a blank sheet of paper or a blank word document on the computer screen. You actually want to write, but just can’t bring yourself to it. You have no clue what to do with your characters next, and they don’t seem eager to tell you. Or perhaps you have a deadline, but you’re aimlessl...

If The Price Is Right Writers are often advised never to sign “all rights” or work-for-hire contracts. I say “never” is too strong a word. Of course, we should avoid these contracts as much as possible. After all, when we sign away our rights, we lose the ability to sell reprints, which can be a freelancer’s lifeblood. However, my policy is “if the price is right, I’ll sign.” A few months ago, ...

If In Doubt, Leave It Out You probably won’t be surprised to learn I read a lot of unpublished manuscripts. I also read a lot of published work. Are there some glaring differences between the two? You betcha. The fact is most beginning writers write too much. That’s okay for the first draft but when it comes to editing, you need to give that delete key a thorough work out! Good writing is about...

I’m Not Shameless I’m not sure if this is a new fad, or whether I just never noticed it before now. “Shameless self-promoters.” The term itself bothers me, and I’ll tell you why. All these gurus who want to teach you about “shameless self-promotion” don’t seem to notice that by using the word “shameless,” they’re actually perpetuating the notion that there’s something shameful about self-promoti...