Merry Christmas from Colorado!

Here's a glimpse of what I see outside my window right now. Family has flown in, the kids are all home, and it's time to tackle the Christmas baking!

In other words, I won't be blogging for the Christmas holidays.

I hope you and your families will create wonderful memories during the holidays. We'll be sledding, eating, playing games, and hanging out together.

See you in January!

How Will Publication Change You?

The throngs of pre-published writers ache for the day they'll find their book sharing space on shelves in bookstores and libraries. To walk in and find a volume with your name on it, side by side with big-name authors is an experience to look forward to.

But have you ever thought about how publication might change your perceptions about yourself and others? Taherah Mafi has.

Mafi's debut novel, Shatter Me, recently came out, and the formerly active blogger has been unusually silent. Why? She feels different now. 

Uncomfortable with the recognition and adulation that comes from publication. 

Unsure what to say when people exclaim over her accomplishment. 

And uneasy that some writers might feel she's on another level from them just because she garnered a book contract.

I really hope you read Mafi's post about how conflicted she feels. I imagine most first-time authors feel the same way, but they aren't as transparent (or humorous) as Mafi. I love how she pinpoints the tendency to under-appreciate artists and writers until they have the "stamp of approval" of a sale.

Do you think experiencing publication could make you uncomfortable?

What Defines a Bestseller?

While researching literary agents, I've come across something similar on many of their websites. When describing what they're looking for, quite a few mention they would like to find books "at the intersection of literary and commercial"

What does that mean? It sounds like a vague description of a book that reads like literary fiction, but enjoys commercial success. But how does an agent identify which manuscripts will sell well? I guess they guess.

Recently, agent Rachelle Gardner asked readers for questions she could answer on her blog. So I asked, "What are some examples of books that fall into the mysterious literary/commercial intersection?"

Today she answered.

Head over to Gardner's blog to see how she responded. The comments are interesting, with a lively discussion of what some consider to be good examples of this hard-to-define kind of book.

What do you think? Have you read books that seem like good examples of literary and commercial success? And do you think your manuscript would qualify?

Keep Updated on Books in Your Genre With This Site

One of the tasks of a pre-published writer is to read in the genre they're writing in. With all the books being published, it can be overwhelming trying to keep track of what's new.


Cheryl Rainfield, author and fellow member of the wonderful Yahoo group Teen Lit Authors, recommended the site, Any New Books. Definitely check out her website and new book. And she's got some beautiful bookplates free to download.


When you sign up with Any New Books, you just type in your email, and choose from over forty categories of books. You can even choose to be alerted to new Kindle releases. For each category you choose, you'll receive an email once a week with titles and descriptions of new releases. 


You can also check out the staff picks, browse through the archives by genre, or read about what's new on the Any New Book blog. The site is a great way to add to your to-be-read list.
Here's the list of genres you'll choose from.
I signed up for children's, teens, and Kindle books. What would you sign up for?


Free Resources from Novel Writing Help

It's funny how becoming a writer is synonymous with becoming a learner. When the goal of writing is finally settled in your mind, you begin to realize how much there is to learn about the craft. And because the journey to publication usually takes several years or more, a writer dedicated to soaking up instruction usually becomes quite knowledgeable.

Think about it. Right now, before the adventure of publication begins, you have more time to give back to those who are just starting their writing journey. Without deadlines or marketing tasks, we're in a unique position to help others.

Harvey Chapman is just such a writer. He lives in the UK, and has taken the time to write and compile a website full of articles to teach what he's learned over the years. Novel Writing Help is packed with dozens of articles on every facet of novel writing.

Writers will find posts like How to Write a Novel in 9 Steps and a summary of online publishing. Articles are grouped by subject under headings like first steps, planning a novel, writing a novel, getting published, and writing resources.

A couple of things I like are Chapman's Novel Writing Software Guide, and Myths and Secrets of novel writing. He also offers a free ezine called Creative Writing Tips.

I can't list all the content of Chapman's site because there's so much. Check it out to see what you can learn, and be inspired to share what you've absorbed about the craft of writing with someone else.

How do you give back to the writing community?

Book Review: The Writer's Workout: 366 Tips, Tasks, & Techniques From Your Writing Career Coach

Quick question: how many items on your personal Christmas list are not books? If you're like me, very few. Well, here's another book to add to your wish list.

Christina Katz, author of Writer Mama, Get Known Before the Book Deal, and Author Mama, has done it again. Check out The Writer's Workout: 366 Tips, Tasks, & Techniques From Your Writing Career Coach.

The nice thing about The Writer's Workout is that you don't have to read it all at once. You pick it up anytime and turn to an entry for the season you're currently in. Katz wants writers to grow their careers in a "natural, more authentic way". By spreading different areas throughout the year, writers don't feel pushed to do everything at once. I can see picking up the book and starting my day with one of the short workouts. 

In the spring, entries zero in on "get going". Summer centers on "find your stride". Fall's focus is "become recognizable". And as winter settles in, you'll "coach yourself". Check out a partial list of the table of contents for more details.




Could you use a personal pep talk every day of the next year?



Free Resources from Author Jill Williamson

Once you get hooked on writing, it's funny how the world shrinks. The publishing arena is relatively small, and you're likely to bump into the same people on a regular basis.

Several years ago I despaired of finding an "in-person" critique group (now I'm a member of four!). I discovered a group of young adult writers online, and joined the group for a year. That's when I met Jill Williamson. She's an amazing critiquer, and I learned so much from her and the rest of the group. I was a total newbie, yet each of them were kind and helpful. And then she co-wrote a study guide with a friend from my small town. Small world indeed.

Back then, Jill was running two books through the group. I joined in on the very tail end of critiquing her book By Darkness Hid, which went on to receive a Christy Award, and is followed by two more books in the series. The other book is just now being released, and is titled Replication. It's waiting on my Kindle (it's a hardship to share my Kindle with my husband--he always grabs it first!).

I love Williamson's website. When I develop a 'real' one, I'll be using a few things I've learned from her site. But today, I'm highlighting a three-part series Williamson wrote on brainstorming new stories. Here are the posts:

Part One-Brainstorming a story before you write: coming up with a great premise.

Part Two-From premise to characters: developing your characters and their motivation.

Part Three-It's time to plot: the what and where of plot points.

Yesterday, we were discussing how to connect with readers in a personal way. Reading Williamson's blog, it's evident that she does this well by corresponding, using social media, and school visits. Want to add a few ideas of your own?

Guest Post: Marketing--How to Hang on to True Fans by Randy Ingermanson


Once a month I post an article from Randy Ingermanson's amazing newsletter. He writes three articles for each issue, and they're all really helpful. To subscribe, scroll to the bottom. This month's post is really thought-provoking for pre-published writers.
Marketing: 1000 True Fans, by Randy Ingermanson

A couple of years ago, WIRED Magazine co-founder Kevin Kelly suggested the outrageous-sounding idea that an artist can make a decent living if he or she has a mere 1000 "true fans."

By "artist," Kelly meant anyone trying to make a living in one of the arts, whether fine arts, music, writing, or whatever. What's a "true fan?" Kelly defined it as someone who likes your work so much that they're willing to spend $100 per year on you. The calculation is simple. If 1000 people are each willing to spend $100 on you, then you can earn $100,000 from them. Most of us would consider that a decent living. You can read Kelly's original article here.

It's an interesting idea and I think it has merit. I won't repeat Kelly's article here. Instead, I'll expand on his idea. I have three main points to make.

My first point is that there are different levels of fans, from rabidly loyal fans who would give you their left kidney, all the way down to very modestly loyal fans who would be happy to read your next book if they could get it for a dollar.

You tend to have many more modestly loyal fans than rabidly loyal ones.

Mathematicians learned long ago that this common sense idea can be reduced nicely to numbers using a "Pareto distribution". (Google it if you're a geek and want to know how it works.)

Here are some example numbers to show roughly how it plays out in practice.

If you have 200 true fans willing to spend at least $100 per year on you, then you probably have another 200 fairly true fans willing to spend at least $50 on you. And you probably have another 400 modestly true fans willing to spend at least $25 per year. And maybe another 1000 slightly true fans who would spend $10 a year. If you've got all those, then you would likely have close to 20,000 very tepid fans willing to spend a mere $1 per year on you.

Add up those various levels of fans, and you've got a potential $70,000 per year, which isn't bad.

What this means is that you can get by on fewer true fans than you might have imagined. In principle.

My second point is that a lot of authors focus most of their efforts on building their number of Facebook friends (or fans) or on building their Twitter followers.

There's nothing wrong with that, but there's a very low entry level to becoming a Facebook friend/fan or a Twitter follower. Anyone can do it in a few seconds. Low investment, low commitment.

These kind of fans are nice to have, but bear in mind that they are mostly the $1 per year crowd. If they hardly know you, then they hardly spend money on you. These are what we might call microfans.

Fans who follow your blog or subscribe to your e-mail newsletter will be fewer in number, but they'll also be far more likely to be in the $10 per year group.

You don't have to find your superfans. They'll find you and tell you how much they love you. You can't sanely keep in touch with very many superfans, but that's okay because you probably don't have many anyway unless you're a superstar. Bear in mind that your superfans are the $100 per year people. These are the ones who'll drive 200 miles through a rainstorm to come to your booksigning. And buy a case of books for their friends.

The important thing to remember is that you probably need different tools for keeping in touch with your microfans, your regular fans, and your superfans. Don't treat them all the same, because they're not.

My third point is that you won't earn $100 per year from your superfans unless you have more products available than just books. To earn $100, you need to actually have $100 worth of products available.

It's fairly rare for authors to have that much product available for sale. Generally, the only products authors display on their sites are their own books, and their publishers get most of the revenue from those.

But there's no reason for you to earn money only from your books. As an author, your main job is to be an entertainer. Any way you can entertain people is a possible way to earn money.

As one example, if you're an entertaining speaker (many authors are), you might pick up some extra cash by speaking. Your publisher will love you, because good speakers can move a lot of copies.

A friend of mine, Robin Gunn, has a store that sells all sorts of goodies related to her books. She's got a large fan base, and naturally some of those fans are eager to spend money in her store.

Scott Adams, creator of the massively popular Dilbert comic strip, has a terrific web site with an online store containing cool stuff that any Dilbert fan would love.

Of course the great majority of Scott's fans spend hardly anything on his site. The point is that those few who WANT to spend a lot on Dilbert goodies CAN spend a lot -- because Scott provides a ton of them.

If you're not published yet, you may think that none of this applies to you. Maybe it doesn't apply now, but it might apply extremely well someday. Whether you get published one year from now, or five, or ten, you'll want to earn enough money to keep writing.

Now is as good a time as any to start thinking about how you'll want to keep track of ALL your fans – the tepid ones, the moderate ones, and the rabid ones. What could you do for each of these classes of fans that would make them happy -- and earn you enough money to do what you love doing?

You don't have to answer that question now. But think about it.

The future keeps coming at us faster and faster. When it gets here, you want to be ready for it.

Award-winning novelist Randy Ingermanson, "the Snowflake Guy," publishes the Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine, with more than 29,000 readers, every month. If you want to learn the craft and marketing of fiction, AND make your writing more valuable to editors, AND have FUN doing it, visit http://www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com.

Download your free Special Report on Tiger Marketing and get a free 5-Day Course in How To Publish a Novel.

What do you think about Randy's advice on reaching your different kinds of fans? Do you think you'd consider selling merchandise like Gunn or Adams?

12 Days of Christmas: Writing exercises from now to Christmas Eve

After long posts for the last two days, here's a nice short one. With the countdown to Christmas, it's easy to let busyness overtake writing time. It would help to have a small, but specific goal each day. That way you'll feel good that you accomplished something, but hopefully won't feel overwhelmed.

There are about two weeks left till the big day. Brian Klems over at Writer's Digest has put together a list of writing exercises for the next twelve days. I love number 2 and number 6, but my absolute favorite is number 8, because it encompasses my current manuscript.

Check out all twelve exercises on the 12-Day Plan page. Which ones look like the most fun for you? Do you have a way to keep yourself writing despite the holidays?

Interview with Author Jack Remick, Part Two: Timed Writing

Welcome to part two of my interview with author and writing teacher Jack Remick. Remick, along with author Robert J. Ray, run a fantastic writing blog that I've highlighted before (here). Don't miss Bob and Jack's Writing Blog. They offer seven free writing courses.

Jack has a brand new novel releasing this month, called The Deification. Readers interested in California's Central Valley during the 60's will discover the origin of the term 'beatniks', and much more with Remick's literary style. Check the bottom of the post for the book's blurb.
Yesterday Remick mentioned a technique called "timed writing". Today he shares what it is, how to do it, and why it might just make a huge difference in your writing.

Debbie: You use a process called "timed writing".  Can you give us an idea what that is, and how it helps you?
Jack: Timed writing is a gift from the gods. The process is simple—set a timer (I use a standard kitchen timer), put pen to paper and write until the timer dings. Timed writing in my world comes straight out of Natalie Goldberg’s brain. She calls it “writing practice.” I wrote in Taos with her a couple of times. My writing partner, Robert J. Ray introduced me to the process after he had written with Natalie three times. He was already an important mystery writer having created the Matt Murdock series, but he said he needed something else to get him to the next level. Wow. Already working in the stratosphere and he wants to go to the next level. Natalie told him, “Bob, make your writing a practice.” Through Bob’s writing practice I adapted the technique to poetry, novel, short story, memoir, screen play. Using writing practice, Bob and I together wrote The Weekend Novelist Writes A Mystery.
 I can’t say enough about timed writing as a discipline. The way I see it, writers have three problems—getting started, keeping going, finishing. Using timed writing, you train yourself to finish what you start—set your timer for five minutes, finish it. Set it for half an hour, finish it. Natalie Goldberg writes about the “marathon” by which she means write for five minutes, then ten, then fifteen, on up to an hour. When Bob and I first began working together, we developed the idea of a “90 Minute Short Story”. Using timed writing, we worked from opening to climax in 90 minutes. At one point we wanted to sell that process to Bantam Doubleday, but the editors there said no one was interested in a book about short stories, why didn’t we write one on mysteries. So our 90 Minute Story system turned into the process you can find in The Weekend Novelist Writes a Mystery.
Debbie: I love the marathon idea! How do you structure your timed writing to produce finished work?
Jack: Getting Started: Timed writing gets you going. Set the timer, write. Then we do another extraordinary thing—we read what we’ve just written aloud. If we’re working in a group, we go around the table, each person reads the piece. There’s a reason for this—get it out. Put it on the table. Speak it. Let someone else hear it and the fear of exposure disappears. Sure you’re nervous the first time but you get over it.
Keeping the juice flowing: One big addition that Bob Ray and I made to Natalie’s Writing Practice was the idea of structure. We saw that the writing marathon carried in it an inherent notion of structure. For example—what if you wanted to write a dramatic scene and you decided to devote a five minute writing to the stage set up, another five minute writing to character and description, a five minute writing for action and dialogue, a five minute writing developing  complication, five minutes to bring on the intruder and to resolve the problem and the last part, a three minute writing hooking the scene you just wrote to the next one. You’d have a structure that looks like this:
                  Setting
                  Character description
                  Action and Dialogue
                  Complication and problem,
                  Climax and Resolution
                  Hook
In twenty-eight minutes you have a complete dramatic scene. You’d know the time and place (setting); you’d have a couple of characters onstage working;  you’d know the action—what the characters do, and you’d have dialogue—what they talk about. Bring on a third character –the Intruder—to complicate the situation—the two on-stage characters have to determine the fate of the intruder; you’re one beat away from the climax and resolution.

You’ve used the timer and the timed writing to push out a complex but complete dramatic scene built on a number of parts. This is the idea of structure relating to time, and it is the key to the second problem—how to keep going.

Finishing what you start: At this point, you can see that you don’t have a problem finishing if you use the timed writing/structural technique on the front end.

Debbie: I can see that being really helpful for me. Okay, you have a way to get a scene written, but how do you use timed writing to put it all together into a book? Novel? Screen play?

Jack: We’ve developed a number of techniques for stringing scenes together into an organic piece. We use a technique called “writing about the writing” to develop a “through line” for the story. You can see some of this on Bob andJack’s Writing Blog where we work out points in the linear structure of a couple of novels. Then, we adopted a technique from screen writing that we call the “Cut-to” technique. This is a dynamic way to use writing practice to push your way through a story. Set your timer for half an hour. Go. Write “my story opens in a scene called Backlash. The objects in the scene are…” Cut to…well, here’s an example of the Cut to technique that I used when I was working out my new novel  Blood which is available on Amazon.com or directly from the publisher Coffeetown Press:

1. The story starts in a Laundromat on Third Avenue in a City that might be San Francisco, but it’s not important, where Mitch gets arrested when he steals a tubful of white women’s underwear.
2. Cut to: Mitch’s apartment. The objects are the underwear as varied as a Frederick’s of Hollywood catalogue, but all white. The action is the tossing of Mitch’s apartment by the police. The hook is to the courtroom scene.
3. Cut to: The courtroom where the Judge sentences Mitch to five years because, he says, every woman has a right to the privacy of her undies. Mitch doesn’t fight the sentence. The object is the handcuffs (opens the manacle plot track) on Mitch’s wrists as the guard hauls him away. The hook is to the prison cell.
4. Cut to: Mitch’s prison cell where he sees René Grosjean for the first time. The objects are René’s hair, his arms, and the metal objects in the cell—bunk, sink, head. The hook is to the measuring scene.
5. Cut to: Mitch recounting how he’s measured the cell. It is 15 by 9. The objects are the bunk, the head, the nail scratches and smears on the walls. The hook is to René’s possessing Mitch.
6. Cut to: The cell at night. René seduces Mitch who lets him because René is the first man who ever made Mitch feel little. The hook is to Mitch’s discovery of the Camus novel. Hook is to killing René.
As you can see this technique forces you to push through the reticence you have as a writer to commit to the unknown. Once you get over that, you can write a pretty thorough story line. Once you have the Cut-to sequence down, you have something resembling a “scene list.” Once the scene list is in place, you work it—always and always using the clock to guide your hand. Here is the first Cut-to of Blood developed into scene material:
It’s hot in the laundromat. Hot and moist as the inside of a woman’s mouth. Sitting on the hard-backed metal chair beside the door, I wait for the red-headed woman to return. The magazine, an old issue of Car and Driver lays open on my lap to an article on the Audi R8, a street version of the racing machine that re-wrote the history of auto racing at Le Mans making it the perfect vehicle of the upward bound young man with two hundred thousand dollars to burn on new wheels. But I’m not interested in the R8 or the Audi record book or anything to do with wheels. I am interested in the contents of the red-headed woman’s dryer. The huge dryer spins to a stop.
              I check the wall clock: 11:30 PM. Maybe she fell asleep at the TV. Maybe her lover called. Maybe they are having phone sex, their words burning up the cell towers. Maybe he paid her a surprise visit and their moans are scorching the walls of her apartment.

Notice that I’ve followed my own structure for a scene:
Setting-time, place, characters on stage, objects, character with a problem. As the scene develops there are intruders, an arrest, conflict, resolution…It’s all there, all growing out of timed writing working the parts to produce the novel. On our blog, Bob and Jack’s Writing Blog, we lay out all of this for writers to take as they will.

Debbie: Jack, thank you for being so generous with advice on the craft of writing. Definitely check out Bob and Jack's Writing Blog. Find out more about Jack Remick with these links:
The Deification
About the book:
 
To be a writer in America, you have to bleed. Eddie Iturbi, a young car-thief obsessed with the dark magic of Beat culture in a mythic San Francisco, sets off on a spaced-out crusade to connect with the Beat gods. En route Eddie links up with living legend Leo Franchetti, the last of the Beat poets. Leo sends Eddie to the Buzzard Cult where a mysterious mentor reveals the writers' ritual of blood and words. Changed and invigorated and back in the City, Eddie falls in love with a snake dancer at the Feathered Serpent. She can't save him from Scarred Wanda, jealous bad-girl of literature, whose goal is to destroy Eddie before Jack Kerouac relays all the magical secrets of the literary universe. Immortality is just a book away. Will Eddie live long enough to write it?
Do you think timed writing might work for you? I'm definitely going to give it a try.
Check out Part One of the interview.

Interview with Author Jack Remick, Part One

Today and tomorrow I'm interviewing author and writing teacher Jack Remick. Remick, along with author Robert J. Ray, run a fantastic writing blog that I've highlighted before (here). Don't miss Bob and Jack's Writing Blog. They offer seven free writing courses.

Jack has a brand new novel releasing this month, called The Deification. Readers interested in California's Central Valley during the 60's will discover the origin of the term 'beatniks', and much more with Remick's literary style. Check the bottom of the post for the book's blurb.

Today's questions focus on Remick's path to publication. One technique he uses is called 'timed writing'. Tomorrow I'll let him explain what timed writing is, and how it helps the writing process.

Debbie: How did you get started on your writing  journey, and how long did it take until you were published?

Jack: We all stand on the shoulders of giants. As a writer, I have to acknowledge that some pretty good guys ran a lot of ink onto paper before I came along. Poetry was my entry into the writing world. Without knowing anything about how hard it was I decided early on—about 17 or so—to be a poet. I tried all kinds of poetry—romantic gushing, Greek dactyls in heroic form, free verse, all imitative until I met Thom Gunn who was teaching poetry at UC Berkeley. Mr Gunn, himself a terrific poet and friend of Ted Hughes, told me, after reading some of my derivative gunk that if I inhabited another man’s universe it would always be smaller than the one I could create for myself. 
That little push launched me into a new world and a few months after that lecture I wrote a piece called To Kepler . That poem was my first published piece.  I thought—okay, that was easy. But it took about fifteen years before I had another poem in print.  Jack Moodey, a huge influence on my writing told me to take my time, don’t rush into print. Learn the basics before you try to play with the big boys. That was and still is good advice.  Too many beginning writers feel the need for validation long before their technique is high quality. This need produces monumental problems. 
A few years later I got interested in fiction. Again, success came fast—a story called Frogs come out in The Carolina Quarterly and again I thought well if it’s that easy, no sweat. But the Muses had other ideas and it took eight years for any of my work to find a home. After the initial learning ordeal, I’ve had some successes—novels, short story collections, screen plays and a couple of anthologies, one, The Seattle Five Plus One  that I’m very proud of because in that poetry collection I worked with some inspired and inspiring poets who taught me a lot about craft, form, technique, drive, image, metaphor—all the good stuff you need to know to be not just a poet but a writer in this hard hard world.

Debbie: Do you have an agent? (you can explain why or why not, or how you found your agent)

Jack: I am fortunate to have a very good and capable agent by the name of M. Anne Sweet. She’s a poet, graphic artist, magazine editor and, now, agent who helps me shape my writing. She asks the oblique questions that make me ask other questions  that in the end answer problems of narrative, dialog, object and, what I call “plot tracks.” 
Debbie: Do you write every day? Have a weekly word count?

Jack: I work every day. I do timed writing two days a week with a group of other writers down at Louisa’s Bakery Café on Eastlake in Seattle. If you’re in Seattle, give me call and we can write together. It’s an open group so everyone is welcome. We usually write for thirty minutes. In addition to the active timed writing on Tuesdays and Fridays, I work scenes or pages three days a week with another group of writers so I get a lot done. If I’m not engaged with the clock and the fountain pen and a pad of paper, I’m working text, rewriting. We have developed an entire book of techniques for the rewrite, most of which Bob has gotten into his wonderful book The Weekend Novelist Rewrites the Manuscript.

Debbie: I'd love to get to Seattle and write with your group! What methods help you combat or avoid writer's block?


Jack: As you can see from everything up to this point, writer’s block isn’t a problem. Using these techniques to develop stories, I’ve managed to produce The California Quartet, four novels that Coffeetown Press will publish in 2012. The first volume, The Deification is already in print and available either from the publisher or from Amazon.com. In addition to the Quartet, Coffeetown will bring out Gabriela and the Widow in 2012. I wrote Gabriela in less than a year using these techniques. Gabriela is the story of a 20 year old Mexican girl who comes to the Valley of Bones to take care of a 92 year old Widow. It’s pretty mythic.



Debbie: What's next for you, writing-wise?

Jack: Right now I’m doing some serious reworking of Valley Boy, the second volume of The California Quartet. Once Valley Boy  is in the can, I have a novel called Maxine in just aching for a rewrite. I have a single rule for my writing—leave no book unfinished. 

Find out more about Jack Remick with these links:
The Deification
About the book:
 
To be a writer in America, you have to bleed. Eddie Iturbi, a young car-thief obsessed with the dark magic of Beat culture in a mythic San Francisco, sets off on a spaced-out crusade to connect with the Beat gods. En route Eddie links up with living legend Leo Franchetti, the last of the Beat poets. Leo sends Eddie to the Buzzard Cult where a mysterious mentor reveals the writers' ritual of blood and words. Changed and invigorated and back in the City, Eddie falls in love with a snake dancer at the Feathered Serpent. She can't save him from Scarred Wanda, jealous bad-girl of literature, whose goal is to destroy Eddie before Jack Kerouac relays all the magical secrets of the literary universe. Immortality is just a book away. Will Eddie live long enough to write it?
Check back tomorrow for all kinds of details about timed writing, and how to use it to streamline your novel-writing process. If you have a question for Jack, leave it in the comments, and he'll try to answer if he can. 
Check out the interview, Part 2.

Free Plot Tools from Save the Cat

You may be so over plotting now that NaNoWriMo has come and gone, but there will always be another novel. It's long past time I shared the fantastic resources from Blake Snyder's Save the Cat! website.

Snyder's name is well-known for helping screenwriters wrap their brains around plot, and writers around the world swear by his methods in plotting their novels. Though Snyder passed away in 2009, he left many resources for writers. You can buy his Save the Cat! book (and there are other books, as well), and he even has Save the Cat software.

But I want to make sure you're aware of the free tools he offers on his website. If you can't attend a Save the Cat! Workshop, you might be interested in the free downloads on the tools page. There are breakdowns of movies so you can see how the pacing works. You'll find sheets to fill in with your own 'beats', and tips on writing comedy and horror.

Also helpful is the active Save the Cat! Forum, where writers can hash out their plots with the help of others.

Have you ever used screenwriting techniques in your writing?

Book Review: Writing Bestselling Children's Books

Writing children's books is an art form. A picture book takes a huge amount of time and effort, belied by the low word count. Writing Bestselling Children's Books, by Alexander Gordon Smith, can help children's writers of picture books and novels navigate the process. And right now, it's free for the Kindle.

In fifty-two concise chapters, novelist Smith details the journey of a children's book writer. He covers basics like finding a place to write and establishing the age range of readers. But he also delves into topics like how to use humor, whether to tackle a 'gross' topic, and how to introduce animal characters.

Though Smith spends a lot of time on ideas, and how to express them, he doesn't forget about marketing and promotion. He also covers the seven cardinal sins of children's writers. Each chapter ends with a list of ideas for writers to consider.

For more information, check out Alexander Gordon Smith's website. You may also be interested in his other craft book, Inspired Creative Writing: 52 brilliant ideas from the master wordsmiths.

Do you write for children or young adults? Have you ever considered it?

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