Happy September, readers! These past few months, I've been on a half-hiatus that I called a Summer Scale Back, during which I shifted to a bi-weekly upload schedule to focus on my fiction and to accommodate for a change in my schedule due to extended seasonal hours at my day job. It was nice to have my writing time be dedicated (mostly) to A Tided Love for the first time since I started it in November for NaNoWriMo 2023, but returning to it after a longer-than-expected break

If you want to pursue the traditional publishing route and be signed by a literary agent, you're going to need a query letter to formally introduce yourself and your manuscript. There are multiple components of a query letter, and among the most crucial to get right are comp titles. And it's not just querying writers who must contend with comp titles, as they're also good for indie and hybrid authors to have, too. But determining your comp titles isn't always easy. For some w

As you'll often see me say on the blog, there is no singular approach to writing. We all have methods that work perfectly for us and ones that don't. Some of these are instinctual, whereas others are learned through trial and error or from fellow writers. The subject of today's post is among the latter and something that has made my drafting and revision process just a touch smoother with just two letters: TK. What Does TK Mean? TK originates as a publishing shorthand used to

A key part of revising a book is making the tough cuts. You might be an overwriter who needs to trim the fat from their story or drop your word count down by putting your crutch words in the line of the Delete key's fire, or you may need to scrap a scene that doesn't serve your story. One of the hardest I've faced as a writer is cutting characters. I've had to do it a handful of times and MAN do I agonize over it. Characters are often the first thing I know about a new story

Using "said" in your writing isn't a sin. As for "said is dead," it's a guideline that's often misinterpreted as a hard and fast rule.

Unless you've got friends like Harper Lee's who are in a position to pool together a Christmas gift of one year's salary so you can write the book of your heart and dreams, chances are that as a budding writer just starting out on the journey, you've got a day job. And to be honest, even writers who are published may still work a day job or have another form of income apart from their books. Writing is seldom a lucrative business to be in even with advances and royalties (sh