Are you a writer? Do you have a dog, cat, or other animal living with you? Then have them come over and become one of our "Friends of Furkid Friday" on this blog! Simply follow Lilie's instructions on the "Friends Of Furkid Friday" page to get a spot. There's only one spot a month, and - as it stands at the time of this post being written - the first available one is for August 2019. The furkids and I look forward to hearing from you!
In other news: I've now chosen a new narrator for my Magical Chapters Trilogy. The new narrator is Emma Thorpe (clicking on her name there will take you to her ACX profile).
Speaking of names, here's a great post containing some thoughts on character and place names, which you might want to bear in mind. Just remember that unusual names may mean your readers will all end up pronouncing them differently. I've got some unusual names in some of my books, but I mostly don't worry about how people say them. Some matter to me - like Kero's name - but as long as they're close, I even let those slide. With my audio books, I've mostly been focussing on making sure the narrators pronounce the names the same the whole way through. I figure that's more important anyhow. If it matters to you that the names are pronounced the way you imagine them though - either by readers or narrators - you'll want to make it easy on them by keeping the names simple, being careful what names you choose to start with, and staying away from unusual spellings.
On the subject of characters, here's something to consider when writing new versions of old characters. Something you may not need to worry about, unless you're writing a prequel, but I figured I'd share the advice anyhow, just in case it is useful to you.
Let's continue to talk about characters for a moment, and consider the possibility of using horoscopes for characterization - a pretty good idea, in my opinion.
Still on the subject of your characters, here's a post that discusses the challenge of writing exes that don't hate each other, which you might want to read if that's something that applies in whatever you're writing.
Next, here are a few tips for creating a complex villain, which may be useful to you, regardless of the genre you write in, or the relationships between your other characters.
By the way, if you're struggling to decide on a title for your story or book, you may like to check out this post on how to find the perfect title. Hopefully it will help you come up with a fantastic one. It should at least get you thinking of potential ones anyhow, which is half the battle.
Of course, the first thing you need to do is actually get the writing done. If productivity is the reason you haven't done so yet, you may want to ensure you're getting time in your sacred writing bubble, and check out these quick ways to be awesomely efficient, as well as this post on how - and why - one writer trained herself to write 25,000 words in one week. After all, though you may not have time to write that many words in a week, you do have time to write - you just aren't making it a priority. Work always comes before willpower, you know. Just remember to look after your mental health as well as your physical health, and be aware of writer burnout, and that your writing goals don't have to be as large as those of some writers.
Regardless of what your writing goals and schedule look like, if it's doubt about your work holding you back, bear in mind that it's perfectly normal to feel that way. Sometimes I still think my writing is trash - and that statement applies to both me and the author of that post. Yes, even with more than 50 published titles, I still get nervous every time I publish a new book, despite some of my already available titles having great reviews. Yes, you have to make sure the post, story, or whatever, is actually ready before you publish it. But sooner or later, there comes a point where you have to let go and press that "publish" button. Sure, some people might not like it. But it's impossible to please everyone anyhow, so don't let your fear hold you back. In fact, here's why you need to be confident about your writing, regardless of what others might think of it, or how good or bad you think the reviews might end up being.
Oh, and... If you do get some bad reviews - or, I should say "when" since that's something we all have to deal with sooner or later - take this advice on how to deal with those reviews.
Speaking of reviews: if you're going to contact an author to ask for a copy of their book to review, at least personalize the message. I had three messages just the other day that I just deleted because they were clearly generic messages. I'm not in the habit of handing out free review copies to random people who get in touch asking for them, unless I've put up an invitation for them to do so somewhere recently. However, those times I have done so have been after personalized polite requests made by people who bothered to use my name and book's title. So, reviewers, if you want to get in touch with an author about review copies, at least take the time to use their name, and specify the book title (nice to do in general, but especially important when the author has a lot of books out). The same works in reverse for authors seeking reviews for their books too. A personalized message is much more likely to get results. Just saying.
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