Ryan Lanz's Blog, page 29

11 Things You Should Never Say to a Writer

As you can tell, I was pretty irate while writing this post and I’m not even published yet.  (I have to say “I’m not even published yet” because I’m trying to be positive after writing this excessively salty post).  Putting my personal vendettas aside, here is a comprehensive list of eleven things you should never say […]

Writing Your Stories: When Yay Becomes Yuck

There comes a point in the development of most novels, maybe even all ’em, when the writer throws up his hands, his pen, and maybe his beer, and says, “This is shit. It isn’t working. The characters aren’t talking to me. The muse is off to South Beach, and all I can think about is […]

9 Ideas to Get Inspiration or Beat Writer’s Block

Inspiration is an integral part of the writing process, without it you are stuck. I don’t have a lot of problems with inspiration; it seems to overrun my mind. However, once I started a book with giant eagles (Shahira and the Flying Elfs) and was so busy with promoting my already published books that a […]

3 Reasons Why We Should Appreciate More Art

Art is like being able to project our most inner self, hidden parts of our mind and heart we might’ve forgotten that exist and they appear to remind us to feel again, to recognize our human and empathetic nature. Art doesn’t take sides – it’s a guidance to different perspectives and modalities of human existence […]

How to Show, Not Tell

  “The road to hell is paved with adverbs.” – Stephen King, Novelist A few days ago, I made my first appearance at a local literature festival (Trent Academy Lit Fest 2017), where I held a question and answer session at a student book club and held four creative writing workshops for young enthusiasts. As […]

3 Things to Do If You Keep Producing The Same Genre of Art

Well, at this point in time, I seem to be going through a massive cyberpunk art phase. So, I thought I’d talk about what to do if you seem to only be able to produce one type of art. 1) Run with it (it will probably change): If you find that you can only produce […]

5 Reasons Why I Leave a Book Half-Read

It’s happened again. I’ve fallen out of love. Well, actually, I don’t think I was ever in love, but after 200 pages of George RR Martin’s A Clash of Kings, I’ve decided to take some space. I mean, I think it’s better for the both of us. I need to answer some very serious questions: […]

7 Strategies for Social Media Marketing

This week’s post is going to hit on a bit more of the business aspect of writing, specifically marketing. I’m drawing my experience as the Social Media Manager with the National Guard rather than an author selling their own work, so feel free to take all of this and throw it out a window. 1. […]

One Argument for Writing Every Day

Recently, writers all over the Internet got outraged over an article declaring that unless you write every day, you’re not a real writer. I don’t share this article’s sentiment however, I do believe that if you can carve out the time and summon the wherewithal to write every day, you should. Writing is worthwhile enough […]

How to Pinpoint Your Book’s Genre

If you happen to go to Wikipedia and look up ‘List of Writing Genres’ you’ll find something on the order of 179 of them. That number is rough because my eyes sort of glazed over as I was counting down the list. Nevertheless, there are a lot. Do genres mean anything? In some cases they […]