Many authors dream of working with books beyond just writing them and become editors, agents, librarians, or booksellers. In fact, Angela Quarles, my writing bestie, is opening a bookstore! And she’s looking for suggestions to make her genre- and writer-friendly shop among the best.

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What Do You Want in a Bookstore?

A story’s meaning and hidden messages often lurk in the subtext. Subtext flows throughout our plots, characters, themes, genres…and story tropes. Depending on how we use and twist story tropes, we might create very different messages for readers.

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Story Tropes: What’s the Subtext?

Our best intentions don’t always work out. Even if our goals seem realistic and possible, what we think is reasonable or what we think we think we have control over…isn’t necessarily the case.

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Writing Goals: Are They Set Up for Us to Win?

I’m back from beautiful San Diego and the Romance Writers of America National Conference and here for a quick recap of the past week with contest winners galore.

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Conference Recap & Bonus Contest Winner!

I’m looking forward to seeing my friends again, and I’ll be doing my first book signing, but the stress? Ugh. It’s a good thing I have my handy-dandy ultimate packing list from the last time I went to RWA National.

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The Ultimate #RWA16 Conference Packing List

A recent article about unlikable heroines pointed out that likability is often more of a problem for female characters than for male characters. While I’ve learned how to minimize those issues with my characters, the problem still rankles me.

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Why Is “Unlikable” Often a Deal-Breaker for Readers?

Last Friday, Angela Quarles’s book Must Love Chainmail was named a finalist in RWA’s RITA award, and my writing bestie’s success reminded me of an important lesson for all of us. The road to success can look an awful lot like chaos. *smile*

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Writing Truth: We’re Making It Up as We Go

We’ve probably all heard stories about ebook formatting problems, but we can be at a loss for how to tell a good formatter from a bad one. What issues should we watch out for? What questions should we ask? Even if we traditionally publish, we might want to judge whether our publisher knows what they’re doing for ebook publishing.

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Formatting for eBooks: Tips and Pitfalls — Guest: Angela Quarles

We often have too much to do and not enough time, so it’s normal to need help sometimes. Yet many of us struggle with asking for help. We might find it difficult to trust someone else, might not want to be a burden, or might feel like a failure for not being able to do it all. But we all will need help occasionally–like with guest posts. *smile*

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Are You Able to Ask for Help?