Scarlett Van Dijk's Blog, page 4

Short Story: Wither

If only I could bring them back…

Madeline sat at the end of the long dining table, a silver plate and cutlery before her. A servant delicately placed pieces of meat and vegetables on it. She wasn’t hungry. She didn’t feel much of anything besides loneliness.

“You must eat My Lady,” Madeline’s nurse, Teresa, said beside her. She was concerned.

Madeline looked down at the food in disgust. The smells coming from the plate made her stomach turn. She didn’t want to eat.

Teresa sighed. “Madeline, you...

I am Converted! Editas Foreva!

Soon my second novel will be released!

Guardian Core, the second book in my Sky Stone series, will be available tomorrow for purchase. I have learnt so much from writing these first two books and I would like to take this opportunity to speak about one lesson in particular.

Editing.

In the past I was one of those aspiring authors who would barely give an editor a moment of thought. It was too expensive, too much hassle. I believed this until I had completed everything I could with Guardian...

Guest Post: T. N. Hayden - Brutal Critique

I have been working on a book series, Mysterious Warriors, since I was about thirteen-years-old. Now, fourteen years later, I have expanded my first book into a quartet and have several quartets to follow. The biggest lesson I have learned through this experience is to accept critique from those you trust and edits from those who will be brutally honest with you. When I was in high school, I didn’t want to get feedback, especially from my viciously direct older brother. After several years o...

Guest Post: Karlyle Tomms - I Never Knew How To Write A Novel

I cannot, not create. It is almost addictive, and it doesn’t matter what form it takes. Perhaps this came from creating ways to entertain myself while growing up as an only child on a farm in the butt crack of nowhere. From stretching rubber bands over a cigar box to make my own “musical” instrument to painting or making up characters and plays in the backwoods where I entertained the trees, it seems as though I have always had the need to express. My problem has been how to stay focused wit...

Guest Post: A.B.B. Olson - What Makes An Author?

I get asked a lot if I ever regret choosing to be a writer, and I always think to myself…I chose this? I’ve been a ‘writer’ since I was three years old. I never chose it. It was chosen for me. Stories have given my life purpose since I can remember, and so my life has been written around them.

It’s not all been fairytales and fantasies of course. Throughout my childhood, I was constantly told (by people who love and cherish me and only wanted the best of course) that I shouldn’t lay my life...

Guest Post: Claire Watts - Challenge Yourself!

This time last year I set myself a challenge. Could I write a novel over the course of the school summer holidays? That’s almost seven weeks where I live.

It was something I’d been thinking about for a while. I was preparing to publish my first novel, What they don’t tell you about love in the movies. That had taken four years to write, maybe more, off and on, in between other things. I’d not long completed my second, Reivers, which is yet to be published and had taken me about a year to write...

Guest Post: Sarah Cotchaleovitch - The Inner Workings of the Serial Writer

I've always been drawn to series – from my early love ofNancy Drewto Tolkien to Lois Lowry'sThe Giverquartet (and many others). Maybe it's just that when I get into a good story, I hate for it to end.

It's only natural that my writing follows suit. To date, the only novels I've ever finished are parts of series. I'm currently editing the middle novel of a trilogy. After revising the first book four times, I thought I could safely concentrate on editing its sequel – until I woke with a middle-...

Why You Shouldn’t Give Up On Writing

Every new writer will go through a crisis. It doesn’t matter what type of writer you are. Every writer will think that they should give up. They will believe that they aren’t good enough, that their writing is lame, that it’s full of clichés, that their ideas aren’t original, that they will never have happy readers…. You get the gist (I’ve thought all of those things and more).

These thoughts may only last for a day, or they may come and go for years, crippling you emotionally. I want to say...

Guest Post: Iain Martin - Discover Your Setting: The Gems of Historical Research

“An author knows his landscape best; he can stand around, smell the wind, get a feel for his place.”
― Tony Hillerman

“Description is what makes the reader a sensory participant in the story. Good description is a learned skill, one of the prime reasons you cannot succeed unless you read a lot and write a lot."
― Stephen King,On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

If you’re interested in writing historical fiction one of the best ways to research the setting is to investigate the memoirs and accounts...

Book Cover Reveal: GUARDIAN CORE

Here it is folks! About three years in the making and Guardian Core is nearly ready for publication. Just to show that I'm serious, here is the front cover for Guardian Core, the second book in the Sky Stone series.