weathered things

Yes, I realize that this isn't Tips for Overwriters. I'm sorry, I haven't really gotten on that yet. It will be next week's post. It will be. I'm going to write it and schedule it ahead of time. IT WILL BE NEXT WEEK I PROMISE! And now back to your regularly scheduled post. Whether you're at this part of the writing and publishing process or you've just started writing, if you plan to get published traditionally you need to know how to write a query letter. And if you're just starting to write, you may ask yourself "well I am not at that point yet, so I don't have to worry about that." Yes you do. So, here it is! Step 1: Know The Plot First off, before you even start, you need to know what your book is about. "But I'm writing it, I know what it's about!" Yes, but that's not what I mean. You know when a friend (or an acquaintance who heard you are writing a book and wants a discount) comes up to...

I bet you guys were expecting a thing for Overwriters today. Nope. That'll be coming next week. I just realized how close we all are to NaNoWriMo starting up. So, I thought I'd share a bit of what I'm doing for NaNoWriMo (how many times am I going to say NaNoWriMo in this post? I dunno), along with a bit of my normal writing process and how I decide what I'm going to write. A side from all that, something I have to do before I even begin to write is get in the zone. I have to be sitting at my desk, I need to have my fairy lights on, I need a cup of tea (with the tea pot nearby, of course), I need my fuzzy socks, and only then will I be ready to write. Only then will I actually want to write. F irst off, I have to decide what I'm going to write. To be completely honest, I don't know if I'll finish whatever I decide to write. But eh, I'm doing it anyways. On my computer, I have a list of book plots that I have come up with. They're catego...

In the media now a days, there is the trend to make a character have a mental illness. And while I'm all for bringing this stuff to the attention of the public who just wants everything nice and sweet and 100% fine, they almost never represent it properly. For characters with depression, most of the time it is like this: Girl is sad. Girl meets boy. Girl instantly is fine because she has a hot new boyfriend. That is not how it works. Whether you're in a relationship or not, depression does not go away. It makes you not want to do anything. It makes you moody, snippy, it makes you angry at yourself–so much so that you end up yelling at and hurting people you love. It makes you bawl your eyes out and feel hopeless and lifeless and dead. No amount of happy thoughts can stop it. And yes, talking to friends helps... but sometimes it just makes it worse. When it comes to anxiety, they're portrayed as really nervous. It is SO MUCH MORE than that. You panic becau...

I won't be doing a book review this week, so instead you get this. Just a fair warning, this will be a bit of a rant post. So, on my journey to get published, I am currently on the querying stage of it. Querying agents can seem terrifying. And trust me, it is. I know what you probably expected. "Don't worry, it's fine!" "It is simple!" NOOOO. No. It is not fine, it is not simple. And you're probably thinking I'm crazy, you probably think I'm overreacting. I'm not. Not by a long shot. Let me explain to you what happens when you query an agent. You spend hours on the computer, searching for the right agent. It's not easy! There are a lot of agents out there. You go through a lot of them. "Oh this one's perfect! But... they don't do YA." "This. This agent is the one. Nope, they only do Contemporary YA." "This one is perfect, they even do my genre! But they don't accept email qu...

Do you suffer from finishing your book, but only having 160 pages? Do you feel like your book is not as in-depth as it could be? Introducing Editing! This amazing program that will consume your life can be very, very helpful--if you know how to use it properly. So, without further-ado, I give you: Now, I myself am an underwriter. I come up with the idea for my story, write it down in paragraph form, all of it being one big long run-on sentence, and then I write it. I don't plot it out, I don't try and figure out what chapter should have what in it. I just speed right on through, starting and ending chapters where I feel they should start and end. But that can pose questions: Is my book long enough? Do I need to add more in to fill out the story? Did I write it as best as it can be? So, to answer these questions and give a few tips, here we go! Before I delve into the tips, you need to take a step back and look at your manuscript. Does it even need to be ...