Helping Writers Go from Unpublished to Published
The Bible says in Proverbs 18:21, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue.” The words we speak have power to create life or death in our lives or the lives of others. If you doubt that, remember how God created all that He created: He spoke it.
Now combine that with “faith comes by hearing” (Romans 10:17), and you gain a better understanding of how affirmations work and why what we say to ourselves is so important.
[Read more…] about What Are You Telling Yourself About Yourself?
Overwhelm can be paralyzing. And as I mentioned in my post “Don’t Be Afraid to Make Mistakes,” fear can be an underlying factor to that overwhelm.
Today I’d like to talk about a method that has helped me move through my fear and get things done. It’s called the Next Tiny Step (NTS) and was developed by New Zealander Richard Ralston.
Here’s how Richard describes it:
[Read more…] about Dealing with Overwhelm: Start with the Next Tiny Step
Publishing a book can pile on the overwhelm. Let’s face it, there are a lot of things to be done besides writing the book.
Actually any project can seem overwhelming when we consider all that must be done and think we need to do it all at the same time.
A good method to deal with overwhelm is to break your project into smaller pieces. A supervisor I once had taught me this. She called it the swiss cheese method—poking little holes in the project one at a time.
[Read more…] about Are you feeling overwhelmed with publishing your book?
I recently started the practice of writing morning pages every day before I begin my work hours. I asked myself a time or two whether they were a useful tool or a waste of time.
You’re probably asking, “What are morning pages?”
They’re a tool created by author Julia Cameron. She discusses them in her bestselling book The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. The book is a 12-week course in creative recovery. She says morning pages are:
[Read more…] about Morning Pages – Creative Dribble or Creative Genius
Last month, one of my Tuesday tip emails prompted a reader to contact me. She asked if I’d ever written about jealousy. She was referring to the jealousy we might feel when we look at the success of other writers in comparison to our own.
When I discovered I’d never touched on the topic, I decided it was time.
I can’t stress enough how unproductive and self-defeating comparing ourselves is. I struggled with this issue a lot during my childhood (having a twin sister made it easy) and on into adulthood.
[Read more…] about Success, Comparison, and Jealousy
Last month we looked at structuring your fiction story. This month we’ll look at structuring nonfiction.
While nonfiction has no plot, you still must ensure that your topic flows in an organized manner from beginning to end.
Does your subject matter fit a chronological arrangement? Perhaps it better fits a topical structure or even a step-by-step flow. Maybe there are overall themes that serve as sections/parts for your book and specific topics that fit under each theme.
[Read more…] about Structuring Nonfiction
This month I’m discussing misplaced modifiers. Boring stuff, I know, but it can make for some comical—or embarrassing—reading.
I think everyone understands the definition of misplaced; however, modifiers might be a bit elusive.
Merriam-Webster Online Unabridged Dictionary gives this definition: “a word or phrase that makes specific the meaning of another word or phrase.”
Modifiers give more depth of meaning to a word that either precedes it or follows it. I think misplaced modifiers are often difficult to spot because 1) we know what we mean when we write it; 2) we tend to put things in the wrong order; and 3) we often speak them in a misplaced manner.
[Read more…] about How to Identify Misplaced Modifiers
Writers ask lots of questions, and the writing community pays it forward quite well.
I see many questions on a regular basis. One is “what program do you use to format your manuscript?” These writers aren’t talking about how to format their manuscript for presenting to agents, editors, or publishers, but programs to format the manuscript for actual book publishing.
Amazon accepts several file formats for ebooks. Here’s a list. Now that they accept epub files, writers don’t have to fret over converting their files to mobi. That makes things a lot easier!
[Read more…] about 7 Manuscript Formatting Programs