Emotional Beats: Seafaring And A Review

Nicholas C. Rossis

Back in September, I published Emotional Beats: How to Easily Convert your Writing into Palpable Feelings. As promised, I will be posting the book on my blog. So, here is the next installment, continuing Part 3 of the book: Other Beats. This chapter deals with:

Seafaring

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A few seafaring-related beats:

• Below her, the stormy waters of the ocean rose and fell with a thunderous crash, while torrents of rain cascaded downward in slanting, wind-driven sheets. On the horizon, ships sailed in a formation like birds flying south. They bobbed upon the waves, their sails billowing under the strain of harsh winds. The powerful winds were pushing them toward their destination faster than expected.
• The ship skimmed over the water, picking up speed on its race toward shore. The sails billowed fully, propelling the ship faster. Four minutes later, the ship ground to a stop, its bow…

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One Argument for Writing Every Day

A Writer's Path

by Tonya R. Moore

Recently, writers all over the Internet got outraged over an article declaring that unless you write every day, you’re not a real writer. I don’t share this article’s sentiment however, I do believe that if you can carve out the time and summon the wherewithal to write every day, you should.

Writing is worthwhile enough to warrant the time and effort it takes to write every day.

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Where Have All the Bloggers Gone?

From the Pen of Mae Clair

Recently, it dawned on me that many of the bloggers I followed five years ago have faded into the woodwork. I was a newbie back then, and there was a core group of writers I developed a rapport with, many starting out themselves. Most of us bonded through Six Sentence Sunday, a weekly blog share. Over the years many have stopped posting, a few embraced Facebook as their platform of choice, and—sadly—one passed away.

Every now and then I might hear from an old friend and that contact instills a sense of whimsy for the early days. When publishing was new and scary, and terms like blog tour, media kit, and and mobi were Greek. If I’ve lost contact, some of that is my own fault.

After two books that were romantic in nature, I made a switch to mysteries and romantic suspense. As an author I’m happy where I’m…

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“The Road to Hell is Paved With Adverbs” – Stephen King – What do the numbers say?

Author Don Massenzio

As writers, we are constantly (adverb) told about the misstep of using too many adverbs in our writing. I recently received the book Nabakov’s Favorite Word is Mauve, by Ben Blatt which has the first attempt to quanitfy adverb usage by authors recognized as the masters of the craft that I have seen.

So, being a numbers person, I was drawn to this article and wanted to see how my own writing stacked up to the masters in this area.

Did Stephen King live up to his quote? The book found that, out of the voluminous novels (51) that King has written, his rate of adverb usage (strictly the ones ending in ‘ly’)is about 101 per 10,000 words or right around 1%. Ernest Hemingway, who also extolled the evils of adverbs, lived up to his claim with only 80 adverbs per 10,000 words over his 10 novels. That’s only…

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10 Signs Your Book Is Ready To Come Out Of You #MondayBlogs #ASMSG #Writing

BlondeWriteMore

I have experienced many challenging writer situations in my time; getting so emotional whilst writing the death of a character that I could no longer see the laptop screen, failing to control my obsession with clichés, struggling to keep a lid on a fictional character crush and fighting a powerful urge to dance in the aisle of my local supermarket, after receiving a positive comment on Wattpad.

There is, however, one writer situation which has the potential to ruin a romantic weekend away with a loved one, put a dampener on a relative’s birthday party and mess up your house tidying plans. When a book idea is desperately trying to come out of your brain, urging you to write it and crying out to you in the small hours, all hell can break loose.

You can try to ignore it all you want, feed yourself silly excuses and go about…

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Introducing ReaderLinks and Author Helper

Nicholas C. Rossis

ReaderLinks

I have mentioned my author friend John Logsdon a number of times in this blog. Not only is he a book marketing guru who has helped me a lot with my own books, he has also been developing ReaderLinks; a website to help Indies in their everyday struggle to sell more books.

As John is a hugely successful Indie author himself, he has developed ReaderLinks to cover all of our needs: It includes a Book Calendar; a Sales Tracker; Tweet Management; a Global Links tool; and many more tools.

I’ve been part of his beta-testers for the past few months and I’m excited that the project has now reached the point where the launch build is ready. Check it out and subscribe to be notified when it launches! You can find out more by watching the video below.

The Author Helper

Except for developing ReaderLinks, John has also…

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How To Handle Your Characters Enjoying Themselves A Little Too Much! #SundayBlogShare #AmWriting

BlondeWriteMore

I am sure all of the literary greats, during the creation of their masterpieces, raised an eyebrow at their fictional characters and muttered under their breath; “what do you think my book is – a fun-filled 18-30 holiday for you lot?”

The realisation that your characters are enjoying themselves a little too much can be a tough one to process. You start to question yourself after your character shrieks with happiness for about the hundredth time in one chapter – am I making this journey too easy? Where has all the conflict gone in my novel?

I always find my characters tend to be enjoying themselves too much when I am having a bad day. Whilst I am struggling with day-to-day life they will be having the time of their fictional lives on the pages of my draft novel and this will leave me prickling with irritation.

Why should my…

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Introducing Write!

Nicholas C. Rossis

This is a guest post by the makers of Write!; a new app developed specifically for writers who wish to avoid Word’s or Scrivener’s clutter and distractions. I have tried it out and it works as advertised. If you’re on the lookout for a new writing app, check it out!

Write! – No-Distraction Writing App for Your Productivity

There are over 100 different kinds of text editors available on Windows and macOS. There are some alternatives to Microsoft Office for Linux OS, while Linux users do not have such a wide variety of choices when it comes to finding a light minimalist text editor.

Being a professional or an amateur writer, a student, a person who just needs to make some notes, there is always a need to write down some important stuff. For this purpose, there’s a new app you can install on any of your machines and…

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You can improve your novel with these tips

I’m always searching for great writing tips. Believe me, I need all the help I can get. 

When I find a few good tips, I just have to them with y’all.

A few of the 42 listed in Melissa Donovan’s post below, you may already know. But, out of her extensive list, I bet you’ll find one or more that ring your creative bell.

Take a look and tell me what you think.

42 Fiction Writing Tips for Novelists by Melissa Donovan

#1 is my favorite because I love to read.

#15 I’m still working on.

#22 is a tall order but I’m working to achieve.

#25 is a good reminder to stay focused.

#29 on my to-do list.

#40 important to remember.

Did any of these tips speak to you? Which ones?

Are you keeping a list of writing tips?

Do you have a favorite tip to share?

I…

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Five Tips for Dealing with Writer’s Block

A Writer's Path

by Felicity Annora

W R I T E R ‘ S   B L O C K S   &   B R I C K   W A L L S

Creative motors are sputtering, you ran out of enthusiasm water, and there’s a lot more dead ends then you remember seeing on the map. Where did all the brick walls come from?

Lucky for you, I have a few tricks up my sleeve that very well might make your blocks disappear with a poof!

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