If you do grab a copy, thank you in advance, and please remember how much reviews can potentially help authors, so consider leaving a review after you've read it, either on the retailer you purchased it from, on your blog or favourite review site, or whatever. I would be incredibly grateful if you did. In fact, all self-published - or indie, if you prefer - authors would be grateful if you were to support your local indie author, or even those you know online.
Speaking of reviews and supporting self-published authors: I was featured as part of the poetry readathon run by fellow author, Robbie Chedle, recently. My post went up on December 3rd 2019. Robbie read "Mr. Pumpkin-Head And Other Poems" and reviewed it, at the same time featuring a guest post by me about one of my favourite poems - which is actually the title poem of the book in question, as it happens. OK, so that's not really that big of a coincidence, since the whole collection is special to me, as you'll see if you go read my post here.
Also, on December 8th 2019, Sally Cronin - also a fellow author - featured the story of the spider and the tinsel from my book "Ulrike's Christmas" as part of a holiday story feature she's doing on her blog. You can read that here.
That's all I really have to say about my books for now, except that I've approved the final version of my pet themed poetry collection, "Puppy Poems And Rodent Rhymes" - a sort of sister collection to "Rodent Rhymes And Pussycat Poems" - already, so it might actually be available before the end of the year too, depending on how well - and how quickly - it goes through ACX's own review process. If it doesn't make it through before the end of the year, it will become available in early 2020. This poetry collection is the last of my backlist to be made available in audio, so once it's available, it will only be new titles I need to deal with production for. Anyway, I hope anyone who grabs a copy when it's available enjoys the poems. The same goes for the poems and stories in any of my books you might decide to grab a copy of.
Every piece of poetry has a music of its own which it is humming to itself as it goes along. Verses sing themselves into people’s heads and stay there for ever, so that even when they are alone and unhappy they have this music with them for company.
~A.A. Milne
If you write poetry too, you might find HowManySyllables.Com useful, especially if you write Haiku, or other forms that rely heavily on sticking to a certain number of syllables.
Sticking on the theme of poetry for a moment, here's a post about breaking grammar rules in poetry writing. Personally, I go with what works best for the poem, and don't care what others do, as long as the poem works and sounds good at the end of it. What are your thoughts on this? If you write poetry, what do you do?
Poets don’t have an ‘audience’: They’re talking to a single person all the time.
~Robert Graves
OK, let's move away from the topic of poetry now, and talk about the elements of fiction, which you'll need to consider if you write short stories, long novels, or anything in between.
No matter the length of your stories, if they're a series, you might like to check out these dos and don'ts for writing a series, as well as this post on the structure of the "classic" trilogy.
Whether you're writing a series or not, remember that setting is crucial to your story. Similarly, if there's a carnival or circus in your story, you may want to check out this writers' guide to carnivals and circuses, so you can get your facts right.
No matter where - or when - your story takes place, this is how to write about your personal values in a meaningful way - just in case you could use some advice on getting your opinions and beliefs across in your story in a meaningful way.
Speaking of opinions and beliefs: if there's a self-righteous character in your story, these tips to writing the self-righteous may be of use to you, along with this post on the fate of the self-righteous.
Next, here's how to choose the right antagonist for your story.
Regardless of your antagonist's nature, if there's magic in your story, here are some things you might want to consider when you're crafting magic during your worldbuilding.
Magical world or not, you might want to check out these tips for book endings, to make sure your ending doesn't disappoint your potential readers, since you definitely don't want that.
Whatever your ending might be, here's a post worth reading, which talks about how to make the right promises to your readers.
Some people don’t understand the promises they’re making when they make them.
~John Green
Now, here are some things nobody tells you about a writing career, which you may want to bear in mind, along with these musings on raising the bar in your own unique way.
Assuming you still want to be a writer after reading the previous post, this is how one writer managed to make time to write 50,000 words in 30 days during NaNoWriMo, even though she 'didn't have time' to do so. Maybe her advice will help you?
Speaking of NaNoWriMo, if you participated - or plan to next year - here are some things to do post NaNoWriMo, and ways to keep your writing habit without revising too early. Yeah, I know we're almost two weeks past the end of NaNoWriMo already, but hopefully you've already been doing some of those things, and have a plan for how to tackle them over the holidays. If not, bear them in mind for next year. Better yet, start doing them now.
Are you worried you're not good enough? Well, I know this is easier said than done, but don't. I mean, what is good enough anyway? If you ask me - which you didn't, but let's say you did, just for the purposes of this post - if you keep writing, keep trying to improve your craft so you can grow as a writer, and accept that your work will never please everyone, you'll always be good enough, because you didn't quit, and kept learning.
A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.
~Richard Bach
Now, here are some tips to help you keep writing through the end of the year. After all, isn't that what a writer really wants?
Finally, if you have a budding young writer in the family, check out these ways to develop your child's writing skills.
4 comments:
Thanks for sharing the link to your story Tori..great job on getting all your books into audio..Happy Christmas..hugs
I think I'll have to come back to these after the holidays! They look good!
Sally:
Thanks, and thanks for featuring my story.
Merry Christmas to you too! x
Jeanie:
Glad you think so. Yes, come back and check them out when you have more time after the holidays.
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