Writing & Mental Wellness, Part 2
The internet is both a terrible and wonderful place.
WriteTips
Writing & Mental Wellness, Part 1
Mental wellness plagues society at large.
Social Media Overload
We truly live in an age of distraction. I’m young enough to dive headlong into the Internet and social media, yet old enough to pine for a simpler time. As...
15 Thoughts on Meeting Deadlines
I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by. Douglas Adams I’ve been managing work and people for 20 years. These are things...
Your Story Needs an Audience
Art is an interestingly human form of expression. Somewhere between the amygdala and the cortex, our brains can conjure the most amazing things. Artists and...
NaNoWriMo
One piece of oft-spoken writing advice is to write every day. Every. Single. Day. Perfecting the craft of grand wordsmithery is not unlike anything else. I...
Goal Setting
“How do you eat an elephant?” “One bite at a time.” So you’re sitting in front of a computer with a blinking cursor amid a vast emptiness of white. It’s...
Focus Your Muse with Music
“Okay, it’s time to write now.” Ten minutes later… “I wonder what’s happening on Facebook…?” We’ve become quite busy in our lives with all the beeps and b...
Time to Write
I can’t find the time to write. You see, I’m too busy this month. All that chaos of shopping and family. How could I ever be expected to squirrel myself aw...
Little Green Men: A Tour of Mars in Fiction
Mars is the fourth planet from the sun and the second smallest. It is named after the Roman god of war. Then again, so is Tuesday. Known as the ‘Red Plane...
Genre Bending
I don’t have a favourite genre. Not to read. Not to write. Well, that’s not entirely true. Because if ‘dark’ was a genre, then I guess that’d be what you’d...
Self-publishing in a Nutshell
Okay, you’ve written a beautiful novel and wish to unleash your wordbaby on the world. There’s no doubt about it: traditional publishing is a long game. A...
Snowflake Method?
I love writing scenes and flash pieces from writing prompts. In fact, I’ve written hundreds of them. Pantsing out 750 words at a time is downright exhilarati...
Learning from Binge Watching TV
So, I have to admit something. I enjoy binge watching TV shows. There is nothing better than curling up on the couch with my best girl on a stormy weekend a...
A Return to Longhand?
I spend a lot of time reflecting on my process: what works, what doesn’t. That kind of thing. Such naval-gazing is a wonderful alternative to actual writing....
How Do You Create Your Characters?
Over the holidays, I was asked about the many characters in my stories and how I come up with them. I wasn’t able to provide a very good answer because I ten...
How Not to Be a Jerk Online
It goes without saying that being active on the Internet requires a thick skin. With social media tools like Facebook, we now all create content whether we r...
How Do You Respond to a Writing Challenge?
It’s easy to burn yourself out creatively when meeting writing deadlines or undertaking insanity projects like NaNoWriMo. Sometimes, it’s just mood and the c...
Writing Motivation
I don’t want to write this post. I don’t feel like it. Actually, I don’t feel like writing a cotton-pickin’ thing. Surely, there is something on TV? Nope. Da...
Lovecraft’s Legacy
The impact of H.P. Lovecraft on modern genre fiction is astounding. While Edgar Allan Poe spun yarns of gothic horror and laid the groundwork for detective...
5 Things I Learned During the 3 Day Novel Contest
My friend Anisa hinted, prodded, poked, goaded and shamed me into entering the 3 Day Novel Contest back on Labour Day weekend. It was her second time and I s...
The Plain Text Rebellion
Let me tell you a story. When I was in high school, I remember when typewriters became computers and document processing a la touch typing became the darlin...
Fear of Failure or Rejection?
What keeps you from writing the story that’s been tumbling in your head forever? What keeps you from posting here? What keeps you from pressing that dreaded ...
On Heroes and Villains
When I was in Grade Ten, I performed in a one act play. I can’t, for the life of me, remember what it was called. Checks Google. It was called ‘He Done Her W...
Finding Inspiration in Nature
Creating art is a curious and beautiful synthesis of observation and imagination. Too often, we focus on what what happens within our brain-case. The common ...
Plot, Premise and Story
We’ve all been there: staring at the screen or notebook wondering how to write the middle of your story. You’ve built a wonderful world and crafted some deep...
10 Ways to Make Your Blog Posts Better
Part of the whole writing gig is, well, writing. It’s pretty much a given that authors build a platform to market and promote their word-babies to the masses...
A Quick Tour of Social Media for Writers
Part of the writing game is marketing (talking about your work) and publicity (getting others to talk about your work). And that generally means using social...
Romance Versus Erotica
Oh, this is going to be fun! A couple of months ago I wrote ‘The (Not So) Definitive Guide to Romance Novels’ for Reader’s Carnival . It got me to thinking (...
Does TV Rot the Writer's Brain?
Hello, fellow quill-bearers! For your mind-bending pleasure, here is another open-ended dilly of a question: We’re often told that to be great writers, we m...
For Love of the Short Story
Grok walked into the cave, tired and hungry. Today’s hunt bore little bounty and dusk quickly advanced into night. A solitary rabbit for his tribe would keep...
Writing Rituals
Last week, I posed the following to my fellow writers: I do most of my creative writing soaking in a hot bath with my head immersed and my editing liste...
How I Rebooted My Love of Writing
Way back in January of 2013, I made a promise to myself to pick up my quill and start writing creatively again. In high school and university, I took to cra...
Writing Software and Tools
Writers, like many artisans, love to talk about the tools and techniques of their trade. Honing and tweaking their systems becomes a near-obsession in itself...
Book to Big Screen: Divergent
I’ve always been a fan of dystopian fiction. I remember one of my first experiences was with John Wyndham’s ‘The Chyrsalids’. From that point on, I was hooke...
How Do You Choose Your Characters Names?
Here’s a wide open topic: Do you choose a character’s name because it just sounds right or does it have to have meaning? Is a strongman named Sampson and a...
How Important is Plot Anyway?
Let’s start with a serviceable definition of plot: A plot is the event or events that are used to insure that you get your story and characters from poi...
All About Using Images
So, you’ve lovingly tapped out ‘The End’ at the bottom of your masterpiece. Huffing a breath of relief that you’ve done it: your word baby is born and you wa...
Words to Kill
Part of the self-editing process (you do self-edit, right?) is to clean-up passive voice, needless adverbs and filler words. This is typically done in a pass...
The Men That Don't Fit In
Some of the best memories of my grandfather are of Robert W. Service. Gramp would, at every opportunity, recite from memory any number of poems. We’d goad hi...
Reading at the Speed of Light
“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” — Dr. Seuss First up, when reading for pleasure...
From Book to Screen: Bitten
When announced that Kelley Armstrong’s first book, ‘Bitten’, was headed for the small screen, fans were pretty darned stoked. Laura Vandervoort’s casting wa...
Doug and Tim on Slaying the Writers Block Dragon
Your brave knight has journeyed over mountains, fought hordes of orcs and resisted the wiles of a sea-witch. He’s arrived at last to the mouth of a darkened ...
(Not So) Definitive Guide to Romance Novels
So, when I opted to write this article on romance novels, my first thought was that I had to ask for help. When I did so, I was swiftly told to hand in my ‘M...
How to Read for Enjoyment
The pursuit of happiness is not a fool’s errand, but what makes people happy? Consider the moment when you’re completely lost in the plot of a good book, on ...
Genres in a Nutshell
Walk in to any bookstore or library and we are confronted by the ‘Genre Beast’. There are many ways to categorize books and genre is but one. Bookstores are ...
Essential Jack Whyte
Do you love historical adventure sagas that span the centuries? Can the Arthur legends be true? What’s the real story behind the Knights Templar? Is there mo...
Write It Down or Annie Wilkes Will Break Your Legs
Why write? Good question. I have no idea. Perhaps, the answer for me is also a line of inquiry. Why not? Why not just pack it in and give up on any dreams of...
On Taking Criticism
A writer’s heart is an untamed beast. Tho from his quill flows a reader’s feast, Not all words are diamonds written. Sometimes the author’s ego’s bitten.‎ ...