Writing Tips from Author K. Kris Loomis

/
Writing Tips from Author K. Kris Loomis

K. Kris Loomis was one of the first authors I virtually met in a Facebook group when I was just getting started on my self-publishing journey. I read How to Sneak More Yoga Into Your Life some of her short story collections and instantly fell in love with her writing style and sense of humour.

I’ve enjoyed watching Kris’s progress as a self-published author since meeting her in 2016. In the past year alone, Kris wrote and publish two novels and the non-fiction book, Surviving Revision. Kris’s guest posts are some of the most popular on my site, so I knew I had to interview her and share her tips!

Read More

12 Days of Planning a Novel: Maintaining Order AND Flexibility (Part 2)

/
12 Days of Planning a Novel: Maintaining Order AND Flexibility (Part 2)

Woohoo! It’s the final day in 12 Days of Planning a Novel. I’ve had a lot of fun writing this series and I’m a little sad it’s coming to an end, but I hope it’s helped you create an amazing novel outline that will help you breeze through writing your novel.

Today I want to talk a bit more about staying organized while still having the flexibility to make changes in your novel outline without causing yourself a lot of extra work. My last post focused on how to do this using sticky notes or recipe cards. This post is for those of you that prefer to use as little paper as possible.

Read More

12 Days of Planning a Novel: Maintaining Order AND Flexibility (Part 1)

/
12 Days of Planning a Novel: Maintaining Order AND Flexibility (Part 1)

Just two days left to go in 12 Days of Planning a Novel. If you’re like me, you probably have tons of notes for your outline but you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed. As you’ve been working through this series, you’ve made a lot of additions and maybe some changes. Your tidy notes now have arrows and scribbles all over the place.

Don’t worry, these last two posts are going to show you how to organize your outline while maintaining the flexibility that’s often required when writing a novel. Part 1 will focus on the physical methods you can use to do this and in the next post, Part 2, I will discuss some digital ways to do this.

Read More

12 Days of Planning a Novel: Hooks and Cliffhangers

/
12 Days of Planning a Novel: Hooks and Cliffhangers

If you’ve read all the posts in my 12 Days of Planning a Novel series, I really appreciate you hanging in there with me. We are so close to being ready to start drafting a novel! There’s just one last thing I want to talk about: hooks and cliffhangers. Okay, maybe that is two things!

When I really started enjoying the thriller genre, it was because of author Greg Iles. He is a master at creating hooks and cliffhangers and if you feel like you struggle in this area, I highly recommend his books. I almost never stop reading at the end of a chapter because I have to know what happened.

Read More

12 Days of Planning a Novel: Setting as a Character

/
12 Days of Planning a Novel: Setting as a Character

Today I’m going to cover another tip to help beef up your outline. I know by this point, you are probably itching to get writing your novel, but unless you are a pantser, which I don’t think you would be reading this post if you are, you’ll appreciate having a very detailed outline once you start writing.

Read More

12 Days of Planning Your Novel: What Will You Write?

/
12 Days of Planning Your Novel: What Will You Write?

Welcome to Day 1 of Planning Your Novel. I thought it would be fun to do a series based on one of my favourite Christmas songs: The 12 Days of Christmas.

Now, the 12 days of Christmas are actually December 25 - January 5, but I wanted to release all 12 parts of this series before Christmas so that if you are following along with me, you’ll be all set to write during the actual 12 days of Christmas, a time when many people have some time off. Of course, you can work through this series anytime you want. I understand the holidays can be a very busy time!


Read More