By Shelley Adina, Amazon Bestselling Author, RITA Award® Winner – 2005When I graduated from high school, lo these many years ago, unlike many of my peers, I didn’t go to university (I did that years later, finishing up with an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction). I graduated on Thursday and on the following Tuesday started work … Read More
Getting Real with Networking
Does this picture make anyone else want to run back to their hotel room? Writing conferences are prime places to meet new people, make new connections, and network. Ugh.If you’re anything like me, the word networking makes you want to be sick and join a convent or a monastery and take a vow of silence, all at the … Read More
Writing More Words Won’t Make You a Great Author
By Julie Glover, 2015 RWA® Golden Heart®FinalistI was recently listening to a Freakonomics podcast titled “How to Become Great at Just About Anything.” Given that I’d like to be a great author, I wanted to know what researchers have identified as the secrets to success. Let me highlight one of the most important concepts they … Read More
A Zipline to a Publishing Contract
I don’t know about you, but I feel as though there is a huge gap between unpublished author and editor of a publishing house. How about you?It’s like there’s a giant chasm and the chasm, depending on what genre you write, is full of gnashing teeth and bodiless claws (fantasy). Or maybe it’s full of, … Read More
The Reluctant Cruiser
By Laura DrakeI’m not a cruiser. Seriously. I look like a sea lion in a bathing suit, I can’t sit still long enough to watch a movie, I don’t gamble, and that just the thought of me on that wave-making thingy makes me laugh (and check my health insurance for medivac). We take 4,000-mile motorcycle … Read More
Sun, Sand, Surf – How a Writing Retreat Cures Loneliness
by Steena Holmes, NYT and USA Today Bestselling AuthorSun. Sand. Surf.Those three words have me smiling and day dreaming about days to come where I can soak up the sun, dig my feet in the sand and listen to the sound of the waves to lull me to sleep.It also leaves me with excitement knowing … Read More
The Power of Going on a Writing Retreat with a Bestselling Author
The first time I got invited to one of Margie Lawson’s 5-day immersions with a bestselling author and multi-award-winning authors (who were workshop attendees, not teachers), I almost peed from nervousness, excitement, and oh-my-gosh-I-can’t-believe-this!When I arrived at the immersion, I played it cool. You know what I mean. That whole, yeah, I’m an unpublished, unknown, … Read More
A Note from our Writing Cruise Publishing House Editor!
I am so excited to be joining you all at the Cruising Writers writing cruise in October! I will be representing Jolly Fish Press, a publishing house based in Provo, Utah, which publishes trade fiction and select non-fiction books in the national and international market.This is an exciting time to be a writer! Not only are … Read More
The Power of a 7-Day Writing Retreat with a Literary Agent
It wasn’t until our first writing retreat with literary agent, Deidre Knight, president of The Knight Agency, that I realized the immeasurable value of getting to spend seven straight days with a top professional in the writing industry.A typical agent – aspiring author conversation happens under ten minutes with talk central to the author’s story. There is … Read More
An Introvert Writer’s Guide to Navigating a Cruise Ship
By Julie Glover, Young Adult Author2015 RWA® Golden Heart® FinalistI’m an introvert, through and through.While some mistake introversion for shyness, it’s really about where you get your energy. Although I enjoy people and can be quite talkative, being among bunches of people for long periods of time tuckers me out. It’s like being a leaky air … Read More