Jennifer Ellis's Blog, page 2

I believe, I don’t believe, I believe…

We all know that making it as a writer is a tough gig. It is possibly one of the toughest around in terms of the work and commitment required to get something amazing on the page, and in terms of the likelihood of breaking out and selling enough copies to make a living, even if you do write something amazing. So as writer, I will not deny that I struggle with believing that I will be successful enough to make writing my main focus.

But we all know that believing can make things happen, and th...

Tightening your Writing by Deleting

Photo Credit: Ervins Strauhmanis / Flickr / Creative Commons

It’s been too long since I’ve blogged. I’m deep in the final ten to twenty thousand words of Pair Alleles (or Auntie Matter, I can’t decide), the fourth book in my Derivatives of Displacement series and am barely coming up for air as the day job continues to get more intense, the soccer season is in full swing, and I must get my thousand words written every single day. Every. Single. Day.

I had the good fortune to be selected for a...

What Makes a Character Likable?

Photo Credit: AnikaandAj

In honor of the Writing Idle podcast on crafting likable characters, which we recorded tonight, I thought I'd talk a little about what makes a character likable, and almost as importantly, do they have to be likable?

I am a big fan of complex characters in my writing.

I really want my characters, especially my POV characters, to be real and nuanced people. This means that they are going to have flaws, because let’s face it, we all do. It’s part of being human.

In my nov...

Scene Turns or Polarity Shifts

I am deep in writing Pair Alleles, Book Four in my Derivatives of Displacement series. I’m just under a third of the way through and on a tight schedule. I’m writing more by feel and less by outline for this novel as I work to find my story and I’ve been thinking a lot about what Robert McKee calls scene “turns” or what Shaun Coyne of Story Grid fame calls polarity and value shifts.

According to McKee and Coyne, every scene in a story or novel must have a turn or polarity or value shift in or...

Maintaining Motivation through the Second Draft: 11 Tips

A fellow writer recently asked me to do a post on how to find the motivation to do a second draft. I was up to my ears in my second draft for a pen name novel, so held off for a couple of weeks, but now with that novel published and a blank page ready to start on my fourth Derivatives of Displacement novel, I have time to do a couple of posts (and catch up on the consulting work that I skipped while intensely proofreading).

A second draft means different things to different people.

A second d...

Balancing Writing and the Day Job: 7 Tips

Photo Credit: woodleywonderworks / flickr / creativecommons

Balancing writing and the day job. The age-old conundrum for writers. As Elissa Field points out, “The repeated refrain in evaluating the perfect day job is the need to earn a living against a writer’s hunger to preserve time and creative energy for writing.” Although the indie world is making it increasingly possible for people to be full-time writers, that still doesn’t happen to most of us. As Liz Entman Harpur observed, “the tru...

Balancing Writing and the Day Job

I am thrilled to announce that I am part of the Future Chronicles Alt. History 102 available now! It contains so many great alternative history stories and will only be 99 cents during launch week. This is a super great anthology. You will not be disappointed.

Balancing writing and the day job. The age-old conundrum for writers. As Elissa Field points out “The repeated refrain in evaluating the perfect day job is the need to earn a living against a writer’s hunger to preserve time and creati...

The 12 Blogs of Christmas: Blog Twelve

Today we have Martin Crosbie, the organizer of this blog hop, and a recent Kindle Scout winner with his novel The Dead List (A John Drake Mystery).

I'm pretty much done my list of things that I hope will change in the indie world in 2016 (although I am sure if pressed I could come up with a few more), and need to go out and do some last minute shopping and get the food for Christmas dinner. Even though it is not perfect, the indie world of writing is pretty awesome. I got one of my best Christ...

The 12 Blogs of Christmas: Blog Eleven

Only one more day in my countdown to Christmas. Today I must actually visit some stores and make some purchases for the people in my life (yes I know... I should have started weeks ago, but it is hard when there is powder to ski and words to write). On the blog today we have Cate Pedersen with a story about a Christmas Mystery Man. In my penultimate rant about things that need to change in the indie world, I am going to touch on something more controversial perhaps... those writers who become...

The 12 Blogs of Christmas: Blog Ten

Only three more days left in the 12 blogs of Christmas. Today we have Jordan Buchanan with a story about one of her Christmas pasts. I'm almost out of things that I hope will change in the indie world in 2016, but fear not good readers, I still have a few more :-).

Since I still don't make a huge amount of money from writing (although it is improving), I still work a day job, but I only have to work part-time. I am a consultant so I try to take small contracts that are about ten to fifteen hou...