When National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is reaching its end, it is time to start thinking about how you will edit your new masterpiece. As you enter the new year, there will be plenty of time to make tweaks and rewrites so you can reach your goal of one day publishing your work. Many writers can be hard on themselves when it comes to editing, … Continue reading Tips for Editing Your NaNoWriMo Work in the New Year
There are many skills and personal traits that can help you be a better writer. Confidence might not be the first one to come to mind, but it’s more important than you might think. If you want to be successful as a writer, you need to believe in your work and your abilities. You also need to be confident enough to share your work with … Continue reading Tips for Building Confidence as a Writer
Photo via Pexels Are you looking for ways to make money before landing your dream career? Whether you’re still in college or a recent graduate hunting for a full-time role, freelancing could be a great way to earn some cash on the side. Despite what many people think, you can earn a comfortable income by selling your writing skills online! Of course, everyone who is … Continue reading How to Make Money as a Freelance Writer During College
I’ve been diving into middle grade fantasy recently, and one of my projects was to re-read one of Young Me’s favorites: Susan Cooper’s DARK IS RISING series. Which makes this a good time to do another post in our semi-regular series: Blast from the Past. The gist: We will occasionally read (or listen) to a book we had loved as children but have not re-visited … Continue reading Blast From the Past!
It’s always fun when there’s good news to share, and today is one of those days. You may know Angela Ackerman & Becca Puglisi, the authors of The Emotion Thesaurus. Well, I’m a big believer in the helpfulness of their books and so joined their Street Team for The Conflict Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Obstacles, Adversaries, and Inner Struggles (Vol. 1). It’s just released, and I am so … Continue reading A New Writing Guide for You: The Conflict Thesaurus +Giveaway
As writers, we spend most of our time writing – as we should. We draft then revise, revise, revise, and revise until our manuscript is as perfect as possible. Then we move on to the next step. Query, query, query. Let’s go one further and say we sign with an agent. What now? More querying, but this time your agent is querying editors. It’s called … Continue reading A Peek into the Life of an Editor
Every single time I sit down to write something — whether it’s a novel chapter or fundraising copy or an email to a colleague — I feel a moment of fear: Can I do this? Will people respond to it? Am I too ambitious? Am I good enough? What if I can’t? Fear can be paralyzing. In its most severe forms, it causes (or at … Continue reading Fear Factor: How to embrace your fear and keep creating
Do you read short stories? Have you written any? I love them and have written a few of my own. This month, it seems as if short stories dominated my reading list. I judged a teen short story contest with 33 entries and read two books of short stories. As you can see, I’ve thought of nothing else and that is what prompted this post. … Continue reading Tips for Writing Short Stories
Welcome to 2021! We are all anxious to put 2020 behind us and focus on a new year filled with promise and productivity. There are dreams of writing the next book, attending conferences, and having books signed in person! However, I realize the promise of a great 2021 may take a while to arrive and instead of being discouraged, I have been inspired online challenges … Continue reading Tic Tac Toe for Writers
All of us at The Winged Pen are looking forward to seeing the end of 2020 and have high hopes for 2021…especially all the new Pennie books coming out, including Halli Gomez’s LIST OF TEN, Jessica Vitalis’s THE WOLF’S CURSE, Gabrielle K. Byrne’s THE EDGE OF STRANGE HOLLOW, and Gita Trelease’s EVERYTHING THAT BURNS. To prepare for the excitement, we’re going to take a few weeks off. But never … Continue reading Goodbye 2020 Road Trip
Today we’re talking with a few 2021 debut authors about writing in multiple points of view. As writers we know it’s hard to get the character arc and voice down for one character, but two, three, four? Let’s see how these authors tackle this writing style. TWP: Why did you decide to write in more than one POV? One of the central questions my book … Continue reading How to Write in Multiple Points of View
This year has been pretty nutso. All the chaos and news demanding our attention can make reading new books hard – at least it has for me. I’ve found myself turning more and more to books, movies and TV shows that I’ve already experienced – for comfort, for predictability, for the relaxation that comes with knowing what’s next. Well, we Pennies decided that re-reading might … Continue reading New: Blast from the Past!
