revision tip of the day

I’m breaking out my Scene Synopsis cards and using them as I revise my chapters. They're a great tool to keep pace and tension high in a MS. Time/Place:Viewpoint characterinciting incidentgoaloppositionstrategyswing beats1.2.3.outcomeimages/notes/dialoguewhat makes this scene critical.

Defining Success

If you ask me to define success, my answer would depend on the day. Today, it means I achieved the literary goal of submitting my novel to the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. I had to achieve four smaller goals on the ladder reaching toward the ultimate goal of having my book on your bookshelf (and...

Husband’s Feedback

My husband liked my book. I'll paraphrase his kind words. "You managed to accomplish what 95% of people who start a book don't. You finished it. And of the five percent who finish only three percent write a good book. This is a good book." He hugged me too. That was a wonderful. And there was...

Revisions, rewriting and doubting my own work

I've hit that point in the process of writing my first YA book where I've fallen out of love. Like any long term relationships it has ups and downs. This is normal. I checked in with Samantha Dunn to make sure. I didn't trust myself. I would have asked Kimberely Griffiths Little to hold my...

Revised Synopsis

I posted a synopsis a few days ago...and I posted that same one to WriteOnCon, but in true artistic neurotic form, I got help and now have a better one.  Do you agree? Synopsis LIFE-LIKE by Holly Raychelle Hughes Liv is dead.  She just doesn’t know it.  And she will have to relive the eighteenth...

WriteOnCon

WriteOnCon, a free writers on-line conference, is about to begin.What are you waiting for? Sign up, I said it's FREE!!! It is being held next week, August 14-16. Got to: http://www.writeoncon.com and see the list of amazing writers, agents, editors that are interested in helping all aspiring writers. I'd post the widget, but can't seem...

Shelli Johannes Wells UNCONTROLLABLE Book Cover Reveal!

Hey!! - here is cover for Uncontrollable (Book 2 in The Nature of Grace series) (What do you think?) Launch is Sept 24th (yay!). Shelli is having a cover contest, go to srjohannes.com and see details. Summary As Grace recovers from tragedy, her science class is chosen by Agent Sweeney at the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to help...

Alice Ratterree is the winner of the 2012 SCBWI Carolinas Art & Writing Contest

My Southern Living blog tour continues with an interview with Alice Ratterree. I met her at the 2011 SCBWI Carolinas event. She heard me speak up at a breakout session about how my blog deals with two completely different topics, writing and infertility. And although in my mind they are both struggles, at the time, I...

2011 is over, that went fast…

How is it December 29, 2011? Where did this year go? I'm not quite sure. But as I slow down and think about it it's been an eventful one for me. Let me make a list of stuff that happened. The order is random. (lists are always popular at the end of the year.) Please...

Holiday Neurosis

I have been avoiding you. Nothing personal, it’s just I’ve had so many thoughts running through my head I needed time to sort them. I also wanted to be able to wrap them up in a funny package, but trying to write funny is disastrous. Instead I’ll confess to the things that have been keeping...