Do you have trouble maintaining your focus while writing? Are you easily distracted by things around you? Try the habit-changing Magic Jar. Continue reading Improve Your Focus: Try the Writer’s Magic Bowl
Working within limitations actually forces our brains to solve problems more creatively. Continue reading A Creative Focus for 2021
Three revision tips based on what I learned doing NaNoWri. Continue reading 3 Revision Tips and a New Book
Do you want to write faster and enjoy the process while doing so? Check out Fast Draft Your Manuscript and Get It Done.
Continue reading Fast Draft Your Manuscript: It’s NaNoWri
~ Do you write? Are you a reader? ~ You have to read widely, constantly refining (and redefining) your own work as you do so. It’s hard for me to believe that people who read very little (or not at … Continue reading Why, How, and What Writers Should Read
~Renew Yourself~ Are you stuck in a rut? Do you sit down to write and do the same things every time? Turn on the computer? Open your draft? Stare at the page? Then pray the words come? I do. For … Continue reading 3 Steps to Renew Your Writing Life
~ Books and Change ~ The ability to change is essential for survival. Those who refuse to change become dull, boring, and left behind. One force for change is literature. Ever since people learned to write and read, books have … Continue reading Books That Change the World
~ Make it Beautiful ! Organizing is something you do before you do something, so when you do it, it is not all mixed up. ~ A.A. Milne Last month, while pondering my Big Word FOCUS, I learned that maintaining one’s … Continue reading Organize and De-Clutter Your Writing Zone
~ 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
ZARA WEST'S JOURNAL 