Tag Archives: Writers Resources

A writing tribe, Collaborating with other writers

Do you have a writing tribe?

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Who is in your writing tribe? Do you hang out with other writers? Do you talk shop, critique each others works or have a writing pow wow? Many of us have the support of family and friends Some sadly do not. Regardless of where you fall a tribe should be in place.

Trying to write a book by ourselves with no outside help is hard and even harder for your book if the only time anyone sees it is when the book is released.

We need a tribe for a few reasons such as:

critique: This is a good way for other writers to go over our chapters through their eyes to help find errors that we don’t see no matter how often we read our WIP. They help find loopholes, tell us what works or don’t work and a host of other things. We need critiques to help improve our manuscript and get it in the best possible shape.

editing: To some extend a tribe can help with our editing but don’t lean on them for them to do 100% of it. That is what an editor is for. Make sure you find a good editor. If you are fortunate to have one include them in your arsenal aka your tribe.

writing: Writing alone is not always fun. Hanging out with fellow writers to just write is very motivating. Especially when we toss out, “Does this make sense?” or “What word fits here?” or “Is this plausible?” or a host of other things that can come up. Heck my tribe has been naming my books since the beginning.

hanging out: Just hanging out with like-minded people does a whirl of good. It gets us out of the house and we don’t have to annoy friend and family as much when it comes to our writing.

These are just a few of the reasons to have a writing tribe. If yo don’t have one already think about forming one.

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Writing My First Death Scene

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A few months back I wrote my first death scene. Before I go any further this book is for YA and up. People know me for my Jasper series which is a children’s series. But I do write in YA and adult as well just the Jasper series was the first ones out.

When I wrote this scene, the death one, it just flowed. I am not sure if I read to many mystery and action books or just watch too much TV but it didn’t take me long to write close to 1000 words on this. It did scare me when I giggled upon finishing. Either that was due to me actually writing it, how it seemed effortless or perhaps that it made me nervous how much fun I had doing it. As someone who has written children’s book it was an odd experience. But what was fun was when I told other authors about this experience and how they laughed with me at my glee. #Writersgetme

I lost nine characters during the fight. I guess I was making up for lost time. I have yet to develop the scene fully and unsure where it will show up in this WIP but I’m hoping it progresses the storyline to the reader.

If it is this much fun doing this kind of writing Jasper volume 4 and 5 may be written much later so I can explore this one more fully.

Author brand

Author Brand: Have one?

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Years ago I was reading an issue of Writer’s Digest and came across this topic. I can’t remember the author of the article but at the end of it was her Twitter handle. I decided to follow her in hopes of learning more. Since then I have expanded my brand through Facebook, Twitter, Goggle+, Linkedin and a website just to name a few.

It takes time to cultivate one’s brand but it is, in my opinion, vital to each author out there. I mean after all, once you are done writing your book and the revisions and edits are all done, then what? No matter how you choose to publish how will you basically shout to the world about your book? Apart from friends and family how else can you let people know about it?

I started on my brand the minute the first draft of my first book, “Jasper, Amazon Parrot: A Rainforest Adventure”, was done. I didn’t wait until it was completely done, I didn’t wait until all the T’s were crossed and the I’s dotted. In fact when I started sending out query letters a good portion of the publishers wanted to know where I was online. Thankfully I was able to provide that information.

Like I mentioned it will take some time in the beginning, but start somewhere, anywhere, and grow from there. You don’t have to be all over the place for that will exhaust you and the sites that do work for you will not be fully run due to you trying to do it all. That was how I learned my lesson trying to be everywhere and not thinking that I was not giving each site enough love and attention it needed.

In due time it will get easier to update the sites to go and make a post or send out a relevant tweet to your followers. But, everyone, do start somewhere no matter how small no matter where just start. You want your book to shine. It deserves to shine.