I have been putting some thought into my scheduling and have decided that posting a blog directly after the weekend is not conducive to my productivity. I end up treating the weekend as a buffer until there is no weekend left. As an experiment in more consistent deadline meeting, I am adjusting my blogging schedule to post on Friday evenings starting with this week.

Thank you to everyone who continues to read and comment. See everyone on Friday.

Punctuation rules, like much of grammar, are introduced to us as a bunch of regulations that we have no choice but to memorize -- or else. However, these rules came around for a reason: the human brain can only follow one line of thought for so long before it wanders. We need mental breaks between ideas to reset our attention, and we can manipulate these breaks to control how a reader is going to read our story. Following the rules is a good first step, but to truly master punctuation, we

Read More

I will be visiting family for the holidays until Sunday and will have limited access to the internet. Due to holiday festivities and other recent events, there will be no blog this week. I may be able to put something together for next week, but we will have to see what time will allow.

Read More

New authors like advice. Advice means new ideas for making your writing stronger. However, not all advice is correct or valuable. Some of it even changes the parts of your story that you really liked. But it is advice, and you know that you know nothing, and it seems like this other person knows something, so what do you do?

Read More

Read More

So you want to write a fic. A not-bad fic. Maybe even, dare you say, a good fic. So you take your idea to your trusted super bestest prereader ever, and what do they say? Bleh. Seen it! Next!

Read More

Last week, we covered the broad responsibilities of a formal reviewer towards their audience. Now we can focus on a few tips and tricks to make your reviews helpful and informative to your readers.

Read More

Readers require no credentials. Authors who write as though they have no credentials are quickly pointed to a number of handy resources where such credentials may be obtained. But for the reviewer there is very little. The bad ones are flamed into indignity, ignored, or in the worst case only review privately where there is no one to save their victims' stories from death by advice. "Good" reviewers are all too often the ones we agree with or have such a following it is not worth the fracas

Read More

The cold tore at them like daggers of ice.

Raise your hand if you have ever been stabbed before. Everyone give that one guy in the back a hug. As for the rest of you, I think it is time for a little talk...

Read More

At some point, every author finds themselves pondering the age old question:

Which is more important: originality or execution? Ideas or story mechanics?

Of course, what they are really asking is:

Could someone please tell me that I don't have to put any more effort into writing the bits of my story that I find boring?

Read More