World Building Capturing a Compelling Setting World building, creating a vibrant fantasy setting, is our next installment in my posts on writing. Fantasy author Heidi L Burke stops by to share her insights on this must-know topic of the genre. Heidi is a prolific and imaginative writer. Let’s see how she approached world building for […]
Category Archives: Writing
Writing a Series with Kandi J Wyatt
September 15, 2020 – 1:22 am
Writing a series seemed like a great next installment of my posts on writing. So when I heard that fantasy author Kandi J Wyatt was doing a blog tour for her new release, Dragon’s Winter, I jumped at the chance to have her do a guest post. As you’ll see, Kandi is a prolific writer […]
Writing Manuals and Reference Books for Writers
August 30, 2020 – 11:36 pm
Writing Manuals and Reference Books for Writers Writings manuals and reference books have been essential to my growth as a writer. So for part two of a series on writing, publishing, and book marketing, I thought I would share some of the books that have had the most influence on me, including the ones […]
Creativity: Supercharge Your Writing, Part III
December 9, 2019 – 9:43 pm
I made a startling discovery. Back in 2016 I had been about to send a manuscript off to my editor and was beginning to research potential agents to send it to. At the time, there were passages and little problem areas that I knew needed to be fixed, but try as I might, I couldn’t […]
Unblock Writer’s Block
September 8, 2019 – 2:12 am
Unblock Writer’s Block By A. R. Silverberry I wrote this several years ago, and it remains one of my favorite posts. Time to re-publish it! What is writer’s block, and what can you do about it? First off, the term writer’s block is too vague. It specifies symptoms but nothing about the cause. It’s like […]
Reading for Writers
June 17, 2019 – 1:33 am
Reading for Writers To improve your writing, pretty much everyone agrees that you should write a lot and read lot. Some people maintain that you should read both good writing and bad writing. The argument for the latter is that it will help you recognize what doesn’t work. The premise goes that if you can […]
Creativity: Supercharge Your Writing, Part II.
May 21, 2019 – 7:19 pm
Supercharge your creativity. Last week, I outlined nine ways to enhance your creativity and supercharge your writing. Today I offer three more ideas. As you’ll see, they work synergistically to help you. Trigger Your Creativity Just as day follows night, you can trigger your creativity using a learning procedure called classical conditioning. Remember Pavlov and […]
Creativity: Supercharge Your Writing, Part I
May 14, 2019 – 12:23 am
Creativity: Supercharge Your Writing, Part I Many years ago I had the good fortune to attend a number of workshops designed to increase creativity. My father taught two of them, and one was with Sidney Parnes, one of the founders of the Creative Problem Solving Institute in Buffalo New York. Through their influence and my […]
Query Rejection: What Now?
May 4, 2019 – 11:04 pm
Query Rejection: What Now? You’ve worked hard on your manuscript, writing and rewriting, submitting it to beta readers, then polishing it some more. You’re editor has given it several passes. The manuscript is as good as you can get it, and now you’re ready to try to find an agent. You send out query letters […]
Writing Journals: An Author’s Guide
August 29, 2016 – 11:06 pm
Using a Writing Journal When I heard that John Steinbeck kept a writer’s journal I thought I’d better give it a whirl. It’s turned out to be one of the most useful tools in my arsenal. It helps me stay focused on whatever project I’m working on, experiment with different passages, brainstorm ideas, and […]
