Jami Gold's Blog: Jami Gold, Paranormal Author, page 45

Is Fear Hurting Your Writing Dream? — Guest: Jenny Hansen

For those of you who have asked, I’ll share a quick health update before we get into today’s guest post…

Some of you might have heard about my emergency surgery a few weeks ago, which removed are-infected chunk of my jawbone. Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing if the surgery removed all of the infection this time, and antibiotics alone haven’t been enough.

So this time, my surgeon and I have been doing All. The. Things. to try to fight whatever might be left of it. Many of you gave sug...

Do You Share Your Work in Progress?

The stereotype of a writer pounding away in isolation still applies in many ways. Unless we have a writing partner, we alone can type the words for our story.

However, the online writing community gives us more options—and thus more decisions to make—about how isolated we want to be throughout our writing process.We can work in secrecy, not revealing our work until it’s ready for the public eye. Or we could involve others in our writing process by sharing our work in progress (WIP).

There’s...

Character Arc Development: Is There a Best Approach?

There are almost an infinite number of ways we can develop our story. Some plot every scene in advance, some plan only the high level story beats, and some write by the seat of their pants.

At the same time, some writers start with the plot and then work out the characters inhabiting that world, and some start with the characters and then brainstorm their situation. Some are inspired by an idea for a scene, and some find inspiration in a big-picture premise. Some write linearly (writing scen...

Self or Traditional: Choosing Our Publishing Path

Not so long ago, a sharp division split the writing community. An “us vs. them” attitude drove some authors to choose sides among two camps: traditional publishing and self-publishing.

In fact, many would say that division still exists.However, from my perspective of watching the industry over several years, the current attitude doesn’t seem nearly as bad as it used to be.

The many successes of self-published authors—including awards based on quality measures—have proven that self-publishing...

Story Beginnings: Do You Have Context?

Story beginnings are difficult (some might even say near impossible) to get right, especially in a first draft. We have to introduce the characters, the story, and the setting. We want to hint at what the protagonist longs for and show an immediate obstacle in the way that creates a near-term goal. Etc., etc.

At the same time, we have to avoid confusing readers, which is tricky.Most of us have probably started reading a story and felt so confused by the first page that we had to read it a se...

Stuck on Plot? Start at the End — Guest: Janice Hardy

Last week, I shared my monthly self-publishing-focused post over at Janice Hardy’s Fiction University, and this week kicks off a short series ofmonthly posts from Janice that she’s sharing with us here. Yay!

If you’re not familiar with Janice’s site, I highly recommend it. She has tons of great craft posts (and she’s also a wonderful person). *smile*

This month’s post from Janice focuses on planning. Specifically, she shares how knowing the ending of our story can help us plan the rest of th...

Self Publishing? What’s Your Newsletter Plan? — Part One

It’s time once again for my monthly guest post over at Janice Hardy’s Fiction University. We’ve been exploring the choices for what path we want to follow in our indie publishing career, and today, we’re continuing to dig deeper into how to walk our chosen path.

My series about Indie Publishing Paths at Fiction University has highlighted some of the choices we have to make and given us a few guidelines for figuring out how to make the best decisions for us.

We started off talkingabout knowin...

When Is a Shocking Scene Necessary…or Gratuitous?

Whether in real life or in our stories, horrible things can happen to people. Undeserved misfortune preys upon everyone.

Good people can be attacked, criminals can get away with their crimes, the innocent can suffer from devastating diseases, etc.But how we react when exposed to those situations in real life can differ from how we react to them in stories.

When it comes to real life, we know that life isn’t always fair, and things don’t always make sense. Heck, I’m dealing with one medical c...

Do You Belong? Or Are You a Fraud?

Last time, I delved into some of the industry insights I picked up at the Romance Writers of America National Conference, and specifically, I shared results from three sessions that were open only to PAN (Published Author Network) members. However, those weren’t my favorite workshops at the conference.

The session I enjoyed the most was a special session over breakfast one morning with Dr. Valerie Young. Dr. Young is an expert on the “impostor syndrome” and is the author ofThe Secret Thought...

RWA16: Industry Insights from Data Guy and More

The Romance Writers of America organization is known by writers of all genres for providing professional education opportunities. While at the National Conference the other week, I met several writers who have only “romantic elements” (or less) in their stories and yet participate in RWA because of those opportunities.

This year, for the first time, I attended the RWA conference as a member of PAN, the Published Author Network. At the conference, PAN members are eligible to attend special pu...