When All the Hats are Yours – by L.J. Cohen

Today, please welcome my friend (and critique partner), L.J. Cohen, author of numerous novels and series including the YA Contemporary novel FUTURE TENSE, the SciFi series Halcyone Space: DERELICT and ITHAKA RISING, and the YA Fantasy series Changeling’s Choice: THE BETWEEN and TIME AND TITHE.  Now, three and a half years later, I have just published my 5th novel. One of my books has sold nearly 10,000 copies and spent much of last summer on the Amazon best seller lists. So am I a breakout success? That entirely depends on what you consider a success. By the ‘can you support your family on your art’ metric, no. But very few

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A Writer’s Journey, Part 1: The Outline

Today, I’m pleased to introduce Kaitlyn Bolland, a talented author I’m mentoring as she works on her first full-length manuscript. Kaitlyn will be guest blogging here on a regular basis in the months to come, chronicling her experiences and answering some interview questions about her writing process. She’s also attending the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers’ Conference in September (her first writers’ conference) and she’ll be blogging here about that also. Kaitlyn is a friend as well as a fellow writer, and I’m delighted to be a part of her writing journey. Today, I’ve interviewed her about outlining, since she recently completed that phase of

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Celebrating The Rosewood Guitar

Today, please welcome author Mariam Kobras, who’s here celebrating today’s release of The Rosewood Guitar, the final book in her fantastic, award-winning Stone Series (published by Buddhapuss Ink)! I met Mariam on Twitter, and love her writing. She writes lovely prose, with deeply emotional, well-developed plots and characters a reader cannot help but love. And so, with no further ado, here’s Mariam: The Rosewood Guitar is my favorite novel in the series. That doesn’t mean that I don’t love my other books–of course I do! I wrote them, after all. But Rosewood is special. I think I relate to it so well

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Writing and the Art of Gardening

A guest post by mystery author R. Franklin James In an effort not to become a one-dimensional author I took up gardening. After signing my second publishing contracts to produce the Hollis Morgan Mystery Series over the next five years, I soon realized that without some meaningful distraction my brain would be sucked into the vortex of fictional characters appearing as real life. I decided on gardening for two reasons: it wasn’t aerobic and I didn’t have to leave home. Doing a limited amount of research I discovered that growing tomatoes takes a minimum amount of effort, money and time.

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Who’s Guilty? God Knows : A Guest Post by Kim Rendfeld

Who’s Guilty? God Knows. By Kim Rendfeld  Delve into the justice system of early medieval Francia and you might find yourself grateful for what we have today, imperfect as it is.  And I’m not only talking about the punishments for the guilty: slit nostrils, the slow strangulation of hanging, chopping off a hand, the witch’s death of being sealing in a barrel and thrown into a river, or the traitor’s death of being tied to stallions and torn apart, to just give a few examples. Even with recognizable elements such as oaths, the trials themselves are problematic to a modern

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Amateur Detectives – Writing a Value Read: A Guest Post by R. Franklin James

AMATEUR DETECTIVES – WRITING A VALUE READ By R. Franklin James The amateur detective as a protagonist has a lot going for her. First, any missteps or lack of expertise is chalked up to the amateur side. Second, any keen curiosity or specialty skill lends itself to supporting the detective aura. Give the hero or heroine a unique personality, put her in a compelling storyline—and you’ve got an amateur detective.  When deciphering genres it is easy to see how a cozy mystery can have an amateur detective protagonist, but not all amateur detectives are written into cozies.  A cozy reads

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Waiting For a Song: A Guest Post by Mariam Kobras

I won the big prize! I get to fly to LA and interview Jon Stone! It wasn’t easy, convincing my boss that it had to be me. I couldn’t storm into her office and tell her that I was dying to meet him, right? There had to be some more…professional reason. But here I am, fresh from a longish flight across the Atlantic and the American continent, with this one assignment, interview Jon Stone. Get the photographer to take  some nice pics of the wonder boy, ones that will make the women at home in Europe drool and faint. I

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Week 4: Ebook Creation: Learn How, or Find an Expert

A guest post by author and editor Tammy Salyer: Treat your writing like a passion, but treat your novel like a business.   Learn how to create an ebook or hire someone to do it (including pros and cons of each option). For someone unfamiliar with HTML or CSS, creating an ebook may seem like black magic. But that doesn’t have to stop you from making ebooks your main self-published medium. Hundreds and hundreds of ebook creators have their shingle up, and a quick web search will find them for you. Better yet, if you’re part of a group of

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