Tag: Writer’s Life
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Wake Me Up When September Ends
Well, I’m back. I’m happy to inform you the two blog-free weeks haven’t been spent in vain, as the first draft of A Trial of Sparks & Kindling is officially done. Did that read first draft? What I really mean is first complete draft. You see, it’s the fifth version of the document on my…
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My Writing Process (Updated)
So, I’m a published author now. (Look, Ma, I’m famous.) A Study of Ash & Smoke was written, then edited and produced by Skolion, and they wrote an article on how the book was made. In that article, we linked to this post I wrote in 2017, all about my writing process. It’s been just…
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August Life Update
This thing happened with my hand this week and I couldn’t work on my novel as much as I’d have liked, which got me thinking. I haven’t really updated you on the stuff in my life in a long while. Let’s talk about the hand first, since you’re probably wondering. In December of 2016, I…
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My Favourite Character Trope: The Lovable Rogue
The way to hook this reader is easy. Write a character who is always dressed to impress, has the wildest charm and self-confidence, flirts with everyone, says things the protagonist thinks but would never utter, and is willing to take the quickest route to get the job done–even if that means doing morally questionable things.…
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Ideas For Writers of Instagram
I’ve been trying to up my Instagram game. I stumbled into the whole thing because the Dragon Writers group on Facebook ran an Insta challenge back in January, and my good friend Tallulah encouraged me to keep going when the challenge ended. So, since January, I’ve tried my hand at Bookstagram. I really enjoy taking…
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No Time For Burnout
Folks, after all the effort it took to get the book written, edited, revised, edited again (and again, three more times) then prepared for print, proofread, revised, and finally ready to publish–my mind has gone blank. The words, it seems, have fled me. It’s probably an oh-boy-my-book-is-published phenomenon. The project is finally out of my…
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Meet the Characters
I don’t know if you know this, but A Study of Ash & Smoke is officially available for pre-order. Can you even? I can’t even. Everything is happening so quickly now, it’s almost unreal after all the time I’ve spent working on this book. And let me tell you, it’s looking good. I’ve been assisted…
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On Writing Advice
The internet. A place of abundance. You can learn almost anything on YouTube or blogs. Unfortunately, many of these instructional sites will just as easily help you fail as help you learn. Others won’t set you up for failure, sure, but your growth process can still be stunted by bad advice. Which brings us to…
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How to Support Indie Authors
Another huge bomb has dropped on the world of indie authors. If you haven’t heard about the #copypastecris disaster, this is where it started. The TL;DR version of what happened is this: Cristiane Serruya copied sections from over 50 romance books by over 30 authors and hired ghostwriters to thread those copied scenes together, then…
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Strong Female Characters
There’s this thing all around the internet. Advice paired with a general outcry–write strong female characters. I’ve had multiple conversations about this in the last few weeks, and I thought we could continue chatting about it here. People want Strong Female Characters (from here on SFC) to the point where they come down really hard…
Yolandie Horak 