The last time I got ready to query, I was advised to get 1-month subscription to Publisher’s Marketplace. It’s one of the best decisions I could’ve made. I knew about Publisher’s Marketplace before then, and I’d written it off as too expensive ($25/m...

At the start of 2018 I got a round of feedback that was, well, like a fire hose of information. It took me some time to figure out how to analyze it all (you can find that here: How to Process an Edit Letter (with spreadsheets)). While I was working...

I’ve known for a very long time that I wanted to be a writer. I got my start writing fanfiction (long before AO3) and fanfiction by its nature is a hobby. Writing was what I did in my spare time. It was how I kept myself from being bored to tears in...

So, you’re going to attempt NaNoWriMo this year and you figure now is a great time to also try out Scrivener, cuz, hey, they have discounts and free trials this time of year. Sounds pretty sweet, huh? Then you open Scrivener and realize you have no i...

Many writers wait until their novel is polished and ready to go out before they approach writing their query letter. They have to figure out how to distill 60,000+ words into just 250. No wonder querying is so daunting! Drafting the query letter befo...

Given a choice between text, audio, and video, I’ll pick text 98% of the time. But there are times when audio is a godsend, like when I’m cooking or in the shower. (Showering is boring!) Since I don’t have endless hours for listening, I’m highly sele...

There are as many ways to brainstorm as there are writers. Surprisingly, there aren’t a lot of guides on how to brainstorm that work for me. Most provide prompts or expect you to work alone. And while that can be valuable, I find having another perso...

I may be a writer but I love using visual cues to organize my writing. I really like and have used index cards to arrange scenes and beats, but that usually requires physical items. I know you can have virtual index cars in Scrivener, but in Scrivene...

For years I’ve searched for the perfect planner. I gave up on pre-printed, bound planners because they didn’t fit my needs. I like bullet journals, but keeping them going is a lot of work. I’m too impatient to redraw a new layout every week. I’ve tri...

Thursday will be my grandmother’s 94th birthday. The women on that side of the family tend toward longevity, but my grandmother is exceptional. A few months back my aunt gave her an old cell phone with WhatsApp capabilities. She’d never had such a de...