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2017 Status Report Writing Goals

February Status Report: I’m Actually Meeting My Goals!

Okay, really 2017? Just like that, you’re a sixth over. My least favorite sixth too—I hate the cold New England weather. So there’s that. But stop flying by so quickly! This is going to be a short and sweet post, as I’m sure all of the month-end ones will be. I’m more focused on the […]

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2017 The Writing Process

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

“Kill your darlings.” I hate that term. It was first introduced to me by my friend Gina Rosati (you should check out her book, Auracle, here—you’ll love it!) during a meet the writers session at our local library. Widely attributed to William Faulkner, but first known to be said by Arthur Quiller-Couch, the saying basically […]

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2017 The Writing Process

Writing Lessons from the Super Bowl LI Champs

…. …. …. Writers block sucks. I’d liken it to that feeling you get when your crush is heading your way and you want to talk to them, but. Just. Can’t. Even if they smile and wave and would likely hang out for a while. The blank screen, the empty piece of paper—they’re just waiting […]

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2017 All Things Together The Raven Bride The Writing Process

Plotting Your Story: Outlining or Pantsing?

I was recently thinking about the brainstorming process and what comes after. There are two schools of thought for drafting your story once you come up with an idea: You can either plot out everything in an elaborate outline or you can go by the seat of your pants and just make it up as […]

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2017 Status Report The Writing Process Writing Goals

January Status Report: Journey Well Underway

The first month of 2017 absolutely flew by. I feel like I was just getting started on my writing goals yesterday, but here we are on the 31st and halfway through what I consider to be the worst two-month stretch of the year: January and February. It’s too dark and too cold! But I digress. […]

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2017 The Real World The Writing Process

Why I Want to Be DJ Tone Terra (and Why it Won’t Happen)

As I sit here writing this, DJ Tone Terra is mixing live over the radio. It’s a funny thing, being a DJ—there’s a lot more skill involved than just fading songs in and out on the turntables. There are BPMs to match, keys to consider, listener requests to work in. I’ve played around on Virtual […]

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2017 Uncategorized

These Are a Few of My Favorite Reads

Today I’m going to go in a different direction. I’m going to talk about nothing more than some of my favorite books. These are the authors that I aspire to be like—and although I’ll skip over the obvious books like Harry Potter, know that authors like J.K. Rowling have played a big role in my […]

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2017 The Writing Process Writing Goals

Story Ideas: A Bang or a Whimper?

Do you ever get a great idea and then it just kind of…fizzles out? I do. All the time. I had one in mind earlier this week that I started, wrote about 400 words, and then decided it wouldn’t work. So I set it aside. I have a Word document with dozens of story ideas—working […]

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2017 Writing Goals

New Year, New Goals

I have a confession: I’m notoriously bad at New Year’s resolutions. I guess it’s a problem that most of us face, but unlike most people I usually don’t even get started on the project I want to undertake. Something inevitably happens that keeps me from getting up and running, and then, at the time when […]

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The Real World The Writing Process

Writing is Hard

Good morning! When I started my entrepreneurial journey last August, I knew I was in for a lot of hard work. There was so much that I didn’t know: how to set up an LLC, how to publish on Kindle, how to market the book by getting reviews and spending money on ad campaigns. Of […]