~ Becoming a Focused Writer ~ Being able to focus is always an issue for a creative writer. No one is telling you what story world to invent nor how to get yourself in the seat, start writing, and then … Continue reading How I Learned to Focus
~A Dozen Hopes for 2019 ~ Time to make those 2019 New Year Resolutions. I have a long tradition of making New Year’s Resolutions. I bet many of you do too. After all, we only get a chance to revisit our … Continue reading My 2019 New Year Resolutions
~To My Readers ~ This has been a wonderful year for me. I have my health and my creativity and have published Within the Skin and have Under the Skin in press. What more could a writer want? Well, what I want is the best for all my readers. I hope you have enjoyed reading my books, loved my free Christmas story (You can get a copy by joining my Readers Club), and had a chance to discover new books, new writers or interesting writing tips each week on my blog. But those are things about me. Here is my … Continue reading My Holiday Wishes for You
~ What I am Thankful For ~ On this Thanksgiving Day, I thought I would make a list of all the things I am thankful for as a writer. Most of the things are simple. It doesn’t take much to … Continue reading 12 things I am Thankful for: A Writer’s List of Thankfuls
~ Plot Your Scene with the W-Plot Method ~ The W-Plot can be used to lay out an entire novel, but it’s true strength is in plotting scenes. I am doing NaNoWr again this year. I love being part of … Continue reading W-Plot Your Way to a Better Scene
~Does Books+Main Have the Right Idea? ~ There are a whole bunch of e-book sales listing services out there – Bookbud, Fussy Librarian, Rifle, E-Reader and more. These services list books that are on sale with a short sales-pitch type blurb. With 50 % of … Continue reading How Do You Choose a Book to Read?
~ Book Awards ~ This week my romantic suspense Close to the Skin is in a competition to win a Rone Award from InD’Tale Magazine– a beautiful and well-known e-magazine dedicated to romance writing. This award is one in which readers vote for their favorite … Continue reading Are you more likely to read a book that has won an award?
~ I ________ you ~ I was very fortunate to have the chance to hear Damon Suede speak at the New Jersey Romance Writers Conference last … Continue reading Characters as Verbs
~ Life in Fifteen Minutes ~ Do you know how much time you spend on daily activities like reading e-mail and perusing Facebook? Do you struggle to reach your daily word count? I know that I do. A while back, … Continue reading Fifteen Minutes Writing – The Book Factory Method
~The Path of True Love ~ I truly believe that the best way to learn to be a writer is to be a voracious reader. That said, how-to-writing books definitely have a place in honing one’s skills. I have read … Continue reading Plotting a Romance: What Works for Me
~ Why I Start with Visionary Goals ~ In my last post, I talked about how I set up my writing journal. In this post I will explain how I set my visionary goals. Designing Visionary Goals When designing goals, … Continue reading Writing Visionary Goals
The beginning of a new year is always a good time to review what one has accomplished and to look forward to what might be one’s goals for the new year. A journal is a great place to start. Continue reading My Writing Journal – Tips and Tricks
~How to Keep Your Marketing Info At Your Fingertips~ Do you have a marketing cheat sheet? I do. Last year when I released my first book in the Skin Quartet series, Beneath the Skin, I had no idea how to go about marketing it. … Continue reading Why Authors Need a Marketing Cheat Sheet
~How to Extend the Story~ When I started writing my first romantic suspense Beneath the Skin, I had no plans to make it into a series. But it didn’t take long for me to start imagining the lives of the … Continue reading Writing a Series – 6 Tips for Success
~Have You Covered All the Bases?~ Do you know how to legally quote from another writer in your own commercial works? In scholarly works, it is usually acceptable to quote from someone as long as you footnote and include a … Continue reading Don’t Get Sued – How to Get Permission to Quote from Literary Works
~GOING BEYOND 5 SENSES ~ Remember those two hard-to-spell senses I mentioned back when I started this series? Well, now it is time to talk about them. The vestibular sense provides feedback on our body’s balance, coordination, and movement in … Continue reading Editing for Sensory Language Part 7 Movement
~Do You Hear What I Hear? ~ Crash. Bang. Screech. Nothing can beat adding sound words into one’s writing. Our sense of hearing develops long before we are born. At 18 weeks, an unborn infant can start to hear sounds. … Continue reading Editing for Sensory Language Part 6 Sound
~ Take a Good Look ~ When we read, we create visual images in our heads. We picture the heroine’s dress. We see the house. We visualize the car speeding past. These visual images grow out of our own visual … Continue reading Editing for Sensory Language Part 5: Vision
~ The Way It Feels ~ Close your eyes. Reach out and touch something nearby. Concentrate on how it feels to your fingertips. When we touch something a giant network of nerves are activated sending information to our brains. If … Continue reading Editing for Sensory Language Part 4 Touch
~ The Gustatory Sense: On the Tip of Our Tongue ~ Stick out your tongue and take a taste. Yum! Our sense of taste is probably our most pleasurable sense. It is also one of the most complex. We have … Continue reading Editing for Sensory Language Part 3 Taste
ZARA WEST'S JOURNAL 