Becky Clark's Blog, page 5

You Can Do Hard Things

My son and daughter-in-law became foster parents to two toddlers, three-ish and two-ish.

They had no children of their own, and not a ton of experience with kids this young. But they dove into the training required of them and then lots more.

I had no idea what their parenting style was going to be, because my son had vowed—even while acknowledging we were fantastic parents—he wouldn’t do many of the things we’d done with him and his siblings over the years.  

Imagine my surprise * when he confided that he learned SO MUCH about us in the few short months he’d had the girls, and we saw him doing many of the things we’d done with him and his siblings over the years.

*not surprised at all

But I was certainly surprised at what natural parents they quickly turned into. They didn’t have the luxury of a long pregnancy that resulted in one tiny lump who didn’t even turn over for several months. No, they received two small, fully-functional people with mobility and strong opinions.

Now don’t get me wrong, there were plenty of glassy-eyed stares, sleepless nights, and steep learning curves, but they figured it out.

They’ve truly surprised and delighted me with their resilience and imaginative problem-solving.

One example is something my son says to the girls when they’re struggling with a task. He doesn’t rescue them, instead reminding them, “You can do hard things.”

I’ve heard the older child remind her younger sister when she was having trouble building a tower of blocks that she can do hard things.

I’ve heard her remind my dog Nala when she struggled on the stairs that she can do hard things.

It’s a lesson the girls can fall back on the rest of their lives. I can do hard things.

It’s a lesson I’ve taken to heart too. I can do hard things.

I hear my son’s voice in my head when I’m struggling with a manuscript, or wanting to quit my workout, or facing some professional hurdle.

Of course, all bets were off when I tried to install the car seats I bought for my car. Turns out, I couldn’t do that hard thing. Luckily my son could!

But car seats notwithstanding, it’s a mantra we can all use.

You can do hard things.

What hard things have you tackled lately?

Thankful

November is typically the time we talk about the things we’re thankful for and there are so many good ones! Obviously, I’m thankful for friends, family, readers, good health, Nala, fried chicken, chocolate cake—not necessarily in that order—and all the things that I tend to take for granted much too easily.

But that’s true every year. This time I decided to dig a bit deeper.

I’m especially thankful lately for The Helpers, as Mr Rogers called them. In this uncertain brink we find ourselves teetering on—politically, economically, medically—every day I find people who are helping in so many ways that are obvious, but probably many more that are hidden.

There’s a guy I like on my local newscast who offers me a lot of calm perspective about current events. He’s funny and smart and he makes me feel like everything might be okay. Maybe not today, but eventually. My son the paramedic rushes into situations without a thought that it might be dangerous. My daughter-in-law is a pediatric surgical nurse, offering medical expertise as well as comfort to families. My son and daughter-in-law who raised their hands and said, “We can!” when society asked for help raising foster children who’ve already been dealt such a bad hand in their young lives.

Good people who stand up to evil. Strong people who fight for the underdogs across the world. Brave people who seek truth and expose lies. Talented people who continue to create beauty and entertainment. Funny people who can find humor when we need it the most.

There is magnificence and goodness all around us, no matter how dark things seem. I’m thankful for those people who raise up their lanterns and bring us all into their light.

Who are The Helpers you’re thankful for?

The Life She Didn’t Lead

I was stretching on the floor of my bedroom early one morning and a song came on my playlist that reminded me of my mom. Three notes in and I was already sobbing.

When I opened my eyes, I saw the sun shining through these silk flowers on the wall.

The song I was listening to, “The Life I Never Led” from the Broadway “Sister Act,” is all about a woman questioning her choices, wondering whether it was too late for her to rewrite her life.

My mom would have been the first to tell you she led a great life, but she once confided in me—when I was well into my 30s—that she’d always wanted to be a nurse. Instead, she raised eight kids.

My shame that it had never even occurred to me to ask about her hopes and dreams as a young woman will always weigh on me.

But maybe this sunny illumination was a nudge, a reminder that our lives are all about the paths not taken, corners not turned. But the corners we did turn led us to where we are. And maybe that’s exactly where we’re supposed to be.

Here’s the song if you want to give it a listen …

The Teriyaki Salmon Saga

PROLOGUE… When Becky’s power went out, she and her hubs realized their battery back-up for their important stuff wasn’t working. Hubs got a new one and hooked it all up before leaving for work one morning.

ACT ONE

BECKY ENTERS, a look of befuddlement fixes to her face, and remains for an uncomfortably long time.

Why? Because while she is finishing her morning’s work, the new battery back-up starts clicking and beeping. “Must be because it’s new,” she thinks.

Two seconds later, the power goes out. “La di dah, it’s lunchtime anyway. Excellent excuse to get some Japanese take-out.” She calls in her order. Ready in 10 minutes. Perfect. She gets her shoes on and lets Nala out to piddle.

At nine minutes, Becky pushes the garage door opener. “Ha, ha. Silly me. The power is out.” She pulls the red handle to release the door. She tries to lift the door. Nothing. She tries again. Nothing.

She calls her husband. “Wah. Can you either rescue me or my salmon teriyaki?”

“Try the handle on the outside of the garage door,” he says helpfully, while eating his own lunch.

“Of course,” Becky says. “Silly me.” She skips out the front door and stares at the garage where she finds no handle.

Not wanting to suffer starvation at the hands of a stupid door, she goes back into the garage, yanks the red handle harder, then executes a perfect dead lift, flinging the door to the top of the track. “I am Woman, hear me roar,” she proclaims proudly to nobody.

Still feeling all Helen-Reddy-tastic, she gets in her car, parks in the driveway, then emerges from the car to pull the garage door shut.

“THERE’S STILL NO HANDLE ON THE OUTSIDE!” she yells in her head to Helen Reddy.

Becky then gingerly inches down the door using the dangerous gaps in the sections. She tries mightily not to get her fingers pinched, all the while wondering, if the worst happens, who will hear her plaintive cries of pain and humiliation?

Not to worry, Best Beloved. The door closes, she drives away to picks up her food.

“Enjoy your lunch!” says the cashier.

“You too!” Becky says enthusiastically and nonsensically.

She gets home, takes her first bite of miso soup and the power is magically restored.

ACT TWO

After lunch, Becky cleans up then collects the containers to dump in the trash bin in the garage. Earlier, because the garage was dark, she had opened the side door for light. In the garage, Becky sees Nala staring at her. “What am I doing in the garage?” the poor dog wonders. “I don’t belong here.”

The two of them get that straightened out and Becky decides to bring the car back in. “I know how to do this,” she thinks, flexing her biceps.

And she did. Becky heaves up the door, drives in and parks. On her way in the house, she hits the button to lower the door. Garage mechanism screeches. She hits the button again. Silence. Gently pushes the button. Screech. Silences it.

Hmm. Becky decides she must pull it down by hand one last time and live the rest of her life inside her darkened house, leaving only to haunt the neighborhood like Miss Havisham in her tattered wedding dress and a handful of cake not even fit for the mice.

She pulls the door down by hand and hears a grinding of metal that hurts her teeth. It slams to a stop about 6 inches from the floor.

“Now I’ve ruined the door. Perfect.” Becky walks away, hatching a plan to blame hubs when he tries to open the door when he comes home after work. At the threshold of the house, because Becky is a bear of very little remembery, she hits the button.

The door automatically closes the rest of the way.

Becky doesn’t look back.

THE END

Find the Fun

Whether you’re a reader interested in the writing process, or someone exploring NaNoWriMo for the first time, or a seasoned writer looking to speed up your process, you’ll find something to love about Becky Clark’s “Eight Weeks to a Complete Novel.” This short blog series will get you started.

Even though I’m a “full-time writer”—a misnomer if ever I heard one—I only write three-ish hours per day and I take off Wednesdays and weekends. I can get several books written in a year over the course of twelve hours or so of concentrated effort every week.

You may have a demanding full-time job or a demanding family, or both, but I bet you can squeak out some hours every week for yourself. Lunchtime? Early mornings before work or before the kids get up? After they go to bed? When they nap? One full Saturday or Sunday? Can you find an hour each day to call your own? Or three half-hours? Or several 15-minute writing sprints?

If you’re pumping your fist in the air yelling, “Yes I can!” then yay you. But if you’re on the verge of melting into a quivering ball of angsty writer goo, please get hold of yourself because in the second half of EIGHT WEEKS TO A COMPLETE NOVEL, I think you’ll find some ideas, tips, and tricks that will help you write faster and organize yourself for success.

Because if I can do this, you can too. There’s absolutely nothing special about me, unless you count my almost perfect fried chicken or my sweet, sweet dance moves. I’m not one of those magical unicorns who can pound out ridiculously high word counts every day. I don’t care to be at my computer for long stretches. I watch TV and movies every day, I meet friends for lunch, I volunteer, exercise, and garden—in short, I have a real life. But I want to write books as part of my life, so I’ve created a system that, with a modicum of self-discipline, allows me to do it all.

You. Can. Too.

When you focus, you don’t need massive amounts of time. Quality over quantity.

Here, however, is where I caution you about the “100% mindset.”

Just because you miss a day or a week, you haven’t failed at any of this. Life gets in the way. Well-intentioned plans go astray. Unless you have an editor breathing down your neck, allow yourself permission to take a time-out if you need one. Call an audible. Huddle up and give yourself an encouraging, inspirational half-time speech à la Knute Rockne. (Sorry. I watch a lot of football.)

You obviously want writing to be a part of your life, but you can always take a short break from it. If you’re not having fun, something is wrong and you must fix it before moving forward.

Allow yourself that luxury. Find the fun again.

Remember, there are many paths up the mountain. I hope you find yours.

• The Writer’s Iceberg
• The Beauty of Calendars
• I Hate Revision with the White-Hot Intensity of Ten Thousand Suns
• The Writer’s Mobius Strip
• Perfect Your System
• Find the Fun

“The author writes with knowledge and humour – she really knows her topic and she wants to share which is lovely. And her chatty style is easy and fun to read.”

“It’s practical, entertaining, and encouraging.”

“This is a unique treasure-trove of outlining information and open-and-go organizational tactics.”

Perfect Your System

Whether you’re a reader interested in the writing process, or someone exploring NaNoWriMo for the first time, or a seasoned writer looking to speed up your process, you’ll find something to love about Becky Clark’s “Eight Weeks to a Complete Novel.” This short blog series will get you started.

The more you follow and quantify a system (mine or any other), the better you’ll know exactly where your sweet spot is.

But you won’t know your sweet spot without some experimentation. You’ll want to figure out how and where and when you work the best.

Do you work better when you focus for an hour, or when you use three 20-minute writing sprints with a 2-minute break between each?

Did your 2-minute breaks stretch into 5 or 10, or were you disciplined enough to just drink a glass of water, or hula hoop for one song, or give the dog a cookie and do a couple of stretches?

Writing sprints are exactly what they sound like. Set your timer and write without breathing the entire time. Okay, maybe go ahead and take time to breathe, but nothing else. Not even a sip of water. Just writing.

Sprinting might be for you if you can’t shut up your inner editor or ignore distractions. Sometimes it’s also what your family and friends need. “I’m getting ready to sprint. Talk to you in twenty.”

Sprinting can be a great training ground to get you—and them—to hour-long uninterrupted writing sessions.

Some practiced sprinters get 1,000 words in a twenty-minute sprint. Some sprinters find sprinting with a group of good sprinters energizing and motivational. Some people (waves hand wildly in air) find it a tad demoralizing to be the slowest in the group.

But you’ll never know until you try! You might have an epiphany and sing praises to the writing gods when you smoke those other sprinters.

Only you can know if it will give you friendly competition or paralyzing defeat. Facebook has some sprint groups, or you might try sprinting with friends BUT STAY OFF FACEBOOK.

If you want to find some sprinters to sprint with, post a comment in the “8 Weeks to a Complete Novel” Facebook group.

This is the kind of stuff I set it up for … finding like-minded folks who can help you, and who you, in turn, can help. One thing about the writer’s journey … no matter where you are, there are always people ahead of you and behind you. Reach one hand forward and one hand back and magic can happen for you.

Try both sprinting and focusing for an hour for a couple of writing sessions and see which feels more natural and which delivers more words. Don’t think it has to be one way or another, though. You can mix-and-match your process. If you have an hour to write, write for an hour. If you have twenty minutes, sprint.

Your process never has to be either-or. It can always be both-and. Remember that.

If you don’t know when your most productive times are, experiment. You may just think you’re more productive when you write late at night. Have you tried recently to write in the wee hours before work or before the kids get up? You may simply be in the habit of writing at a certain time, but if you’ve been writing for any length of time, you’re a different writer now. If you’re new to this writing thing, you won’t know when you’re most productive. So find out!

Take a few weeks and try different writing schedules. Late at night? Early in the morning? Twenty-minute sprints throughout the day? You may be surprised.

I’m an early bird, up every day at 5 a.m. But when I tried to write then, it was a fiasco. That was not efficient writing time for me, which surprised me.

And what about where you write? Take a stab at writing in a different place for a while—coffee shop, kitchen table, lounging on the couch, library, your desk, grocery store produce department. Again, keep an open mind and you may be surprised at your results. But you’ll never know until you try. Be sure to keep meticulous notes of your experiment, you scientist, you.

When you’re able to set aside those times and places when you’re consistently more productive and the writing comes easier, your process will be a dream.

Next article … Find the Fun

• The Writer’s Iceberg
• The Beauty of Calendars
• I Hate Revision with the White-Hot Intensity of Ten Thousand Suns
• The Writer’s Mobius Strip
• Perfect Your System
• Find the Fun

“A lot of practical advice, a few chuckles, and much motivation to help authors on their journey.”

“This is the one guide you should have on your reference shelf.”

“Step by step, no boxing in of your creative style or creativity, and full of years of experience, the author knows what she’s talking about.”

The Writer’s Möbius Strip

Whether you’re a reader interested in the writing process, or someone exploring NaNoWriMo for the first time, or a seasoned writer looking to speed up your process, you’ll find something to love about Becky Clark’s “Eight Weeks to a Complete Novel.” This short blog series will get you started.

Never forget that success begets success, whether it’s learning to tie your shoe or writing novels. The more you write, the better you write. The better you write, the faster you write. The faster you write, the more you write. The more you write, the better you write. The better you write … well, it never ends, does it?

Next article … Perfect Your System

• The Writer’s Iceberg
• The Beauty of Calendars
• I Hate Revision with the White-Hot Intensity of Ten Thousand Suns
• The Writer’s Mobius Strip
• Perfect Your System
• Find the Fun

“What I love best about the book? It’s written with a light, witty voice that makes me laugh out loud while thumping my head and saying, Why didn’t someone tell me this earlier?”

“will inspire both novice and professional writers”

“a lifesaver for me”

I Hate Revision with the White-Hot Intensity of Ten Thousand Suns

Whether you’re a reader interested in the writing process, or someone exploring NaNoWriMo for the first time, or a seasoned writer looking to speed up your process, you’ll find something to love about Becky Clark’s “Eight Weeks to a Complete Novel.” This short blog series will get you started.

Up front I should confess that I hate revision with the white-hot intensity of ten thousand suns. You might have read that somewhere. In the past, I’ve had to pull a single plot thread from a manuscript, only to watch in horror as the entire story sweater puddled at my feet. Revision renders me so desperately unable to function that all I can do is crawl back into bed and hibernate until someone sweeps the pile of threads away. But nobody ever does that. I’m always on my own. And I don’t like it.

Other writers have told me they struggle through the first draft as if on a forced march through quicksand carrying a squirmy toddler wet from a bath.

They get excited about finally writing THE END so they can gleefully toss those pages into the air—sometimes literally—and then rearrange everything.

The idea of that makes me throw up in my mouth a little bit.  

I said I don’t like revision, but let’s define some terms. I don’t like the kind of major revisions where you subtract characters or subplots, or where you get to the end and find out no, he wasn’t the bad guy after all … it was her! Or this shouldn’t be set in Victorian England … it’s a space opera set two hundred years in the future!

I’m feeling faint just saying that.

The type of revision I love, however, is the layering. Where you have the bones of your story and you get to go back and add layers of description, theme, humor … whatever it is that makes your story yours.

That’s why I shoot for about 60,000 words in the first draft. I typically write lighter mysteries, which clock in at around 75,000 words at publication. Some are shorter, some are longer, but this is what I aim at for mine.

Other genres and subgenres are different. They all have their rules, and, of course, publishing houses have their rules as well.

I try to hit that 75k by the time I do my final polish. Because I like that layering, I prefer to err on the side of a lower word count. Adding words is so much easier than subtracting them. Seasoning a stew a bit at a time is much easier than dumping in too much paprika. There’s no easy way of unpaprika-izing your stew. Don’t ask me how I know this.

My eight weeks looks like this:

Week 1 —outline and synopsis
Week 2 — write
Week 3 — write
Week 4 — write
Week 5 — write
Week 6 — editing
Week 7 — editing
Week 8 — final polish

I often use “outline” and “synopsis” interchangeably. That’s because, to me, they’re kind of the same document. Technically, though, you begin with the outline which is sparse. It gets fleshed out into the synopsis, which is a more complete version of your outline, in paragraph form. My outlines are 5-ish pages which morph into a 30-ish page synopsis. So, when I talk about a “30-page outline,” don’t have a cow, man.

I typically only write two or three hours a day on the days I write, but I don’t put any time parameters to creating the outline and synopsis in Week 1. That’s because I spend as much time as I can on the beats of my story in that first week. I find it the most fun, discovering where my story actually is and thinking about all the different directions the plot can go. I enjoy the writing and editing parts too, but I find them more difficult and demanding. Kind of like leafing through a cookbook versus settling down to prepare something for dinner. All these food references. I must be hungry.

This outlining and synopsis phase is where I’ll add extra time if I have that luxury.

Sometimes we need something new to shake us out of a rut or to show us we can do something we’re not convinced will work. If you’re a writer, you wouldn’t be reading this if you had a system that was working for you. And admit it … you’re curious. You want to see if you can challenge yourself this way. That’s perfectly fine. Multitudes of successful projects have begun with a dare. The moon shot. Silicon Valley businesses. My haircut.

I’ll probably say this forty-leven gazillion times. My specific way won’t work for everyone. You need to put your special spin on it, playing to your strengths and accommodating your weaknesses. But until you know what exactly those strengths and weaknesses are, you’ll just be dog-paddling in the Eight Weeks pool.

Next article … The Writer’s Mobius Strip

• The Writer’s Iceberg
• The Beauty of Calendars
• I Hate Revision with the White-Hot Intensity of Ten Thousand Suns
• The Writer’s Mobius Strip
• Perfect Your System
• Find the Fun

“Whether you want to write a novel in 8 weeks is up to you but even if you can’t make that kind of commitment to writing, the planning techniques presented here will help you devote more focused and better time to your writing project.”

“So awesome I don’t even know where to begin.”

“Must-read for any writer–highly recommend!”

The Beauty of Calendars

Whether you’re a reader interested in the writing process, or someone exploring NaNoWriMo for the first time, or a seasoned writer looking to speed up your process, you’ll find something to love about Becky Clark’s “Eight Weeks to a Complete Novel.” This short blog series will get you started.

I was eating my lunch with the gang from NPR and I caught part of a story about Hans Fallada, a bestselling German novelist arrested by the Gestapo back in the day because he wouldn’t join the Nazi Party.

I found out two astonishing things about this inspiring man.

First, Goebbels ordered Fallada to write an anti-Semitic novel. “He pretended to write the assignment for Goebbels, while actually composing three encrypted books—including his tour de force novel “The Drinker”—in such dense code that they weren’t deciphered until long after his death.”

Knowing how hard it is to write a novel, can you imagine writing encrypted novels? Three of them? While imprisoned by Nazis?

Fallada survived the ordeal and was freed after the war. His publisher wanted to help him recover and get him back to writing so he gave Fallada the Gestapo file of a couple who worked in the Resistance. Their story inspired him and he wrote “Every Man Dies Alone” in twenty-four days.

Read that sentence again. Twenty-four days.

Fallada’s son said that Hans Fallada had an iron-clad rule: “No day will you write less than yesterday.”

That is a high bar to reach.

I’ve always written my first drafts fast. Not twenty-four days fast, but pretty fast. I’ve also always outlined, which speeds up the process tremendously. Outlining is the only way I know how to be reliably and consistently organized enough to write at least two pretty solid manuscripts per year. And now I’m embarking on a project where I’ll try writing three—maybe four—books per year.

Here’s a bit about my story and why my process is so important to me.

I got lucky and landed a three-book deal for a cozy mystery series, one book per year for three years. Right after that, I signed with a fabulous agent who told me she wanted me to solidify my brand by publishing two books per year so I had something coming out every six months.

“Sure, of course!” I said, even though up until then I had never reliably published one novel per year and didn’t even have ideas for another series to pitch to her. So, I needed a plan. And fast. For years I had been creating and honing my process here and there, but now I had to get very serious about it.

The first thing I did was grab a year-at-a-glance calendar. I marked red for the anticipated publication date of contracted book #1. Orange for when I thought I’d have to get it to my editor. Blue for outlining, pink for writing, purple for editing. Then I marked the next project. Then the next.

I made up the deadlines because I didn’t know what they were yet. But that gave me a visual picture of my next three years. And I saw I had plenty of time.

That’s the beauty of calendars. They’re very predictable.

Of course, having time and completing projects are two very different beasts, just like writing books and getting books published don’t always go hand-in-hand.

(Unless you want to see me ugly-cry, don’t ask me how many manuscripts are sitting, twiddling their thumbs until I get around to doing something about them.)

Before any project is completed, there must be a corresponding amount of self-discipline, BICHOK (butt in chair, hands on keyboard), and time management skills.

In his book “Outliers,” Malcolm Gladwell says he believes for anyone to get great at anything, it takes 10,000 hours of deliberate practice. The more words a writer gets under their belt and the faster they learn from their edits, the faster their writing gets.

The more pie crusts you attempt, the flakier they get.

The more steaks you grill, the more you can tell when they’re done to perfection.

The more sushi you roll, the better it sticks together.

Hm, I guess I’m getting hungry. Let’s pick this up later, shall we?

Next article … I Hate Revision with the White-Hot Intensity of Ten Thousand Suns

• The Writer’s Iceberg
• The Beauty of Calendars
• I Hate Revision with the White-Hot Intensity of Ten Thousand Suns
• The Writer’s Mobius Strip
• Perfect Your System
• Find the Fun

“The voice is delightfully humorous and uplifting–when you’re done, you’ll know EXACTLY how to make your book happen, and you’ll be able to ascend Manuscript Mountain (with Becky cheering you on every step of the way).”

“effortless, educational, and fun read”

“I was able to pull many tips and tricks out to learn to write faster and better in a more organized manner. Priceless!”

The Writer’s Iceberg

Whether you’re a reader interested in the writing process, or someone exploring NaNoWriMo for the first time, or a seasoned writer looking to speed up your process, you’ll find something to love about Becky Clark’s “Eight Weeks to a Complete Novel.” This short blog series will get you started.

Even though I’m not a Broadway star, I want to see backstage. Even though I’m not an enthusiastic cook, I want to see kitchen videos. Even though I’m not a cop, I want to see investigations.

So, I thought, even if you’re not a writer, you might want to see a bit of my process, how that particular sausage gets made. (The process is much less gross, so don’t worry.)

Of course, if you are a writer, you’re probably curious—like I am—about other writers’ processes.

Because I write several different cozy mystery series’ with humor and an amateur sleuth, my heroes skew more to the reluctant side. They’re not detectives or private eyes whose job depends on solving cases.

My main characters have adventures thrust upon them. They definitely do not seek them out!

That’s why before I sit down to write anything I know a lot about them. That way I can explore how they’d react to a dead body or murder accusation. Then I develop and deepen the characters and the story as I write. I get to know them better little by little, just like in real life.

You don’t just walk into a meeting or cocktail party full of strangers and immediately launch into a long, involved story about your fraught relationship with your siblings, or that personality-defining time your parents forgot you at the Piggly Wiggly, or that you’re a card-carrying member of both Mensa and Blockbuster.

Well, you might, but—ugh—you probably won’t be invited back.

It’s the same with writing a book. Information is teased out logically, when it becomes important for the reader to know.

Authors feel in their very soul the truth of the Writing Iceberg. Just the tip sticks up out of the water—that’s the part the reader knows. But the enormous bulk of the berg is hidden unseen. That’s the part the writer knows.

In my upcoming Sugar Mill Marketplace series of fifteen books, there are characters and facts galore. I’m able to drop hints and clues in book two that will pay off in book twelve. Just like in real life you might say about a friend going through some drama, “Oh, she’s been losing weight for months but refuses to talk about it. Now I understand why!”

Would you like to see how I develop that iceberg?

Next article … The Beauty of Calendars

• The Writer’s Iceberg
• The Beauty of Calendars
• I Hate Revision with the White-Hot Intensity of Ten Thousand Suns
• The Writer’s Mobius Strip
• Perfect Your System
• Find the Fun

“Her sage advice and laugh-out-loud humor made this book both a valuable tool and an entertaining read.”

“Even if you are just a fan, with no intention of ever trying to write a book, read this book for insight on how your favorite authors craft your favorite books.”

“I wanted to implement everything before I wrote the review. I was able to plot out a 5-book series and get the first book finished in the 8 weeks she promised.”