Motivation

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Staying Positive Despite Rejection

This week in my accountability group’s How I Write series we were asked, “Every writer goes through ups and downs. What do you do to keep positive about what you’re working on?” I chose to interpret this as “How do you focus on staying positive despite rejection?” Because, we writer’s know, there are different forms…

Character Development & Archetypes

This week for our How I Write series, my accountability group asked, “How do you develop your characters? Do you have a favourite kind/archetype?” We covered part of the idea of character development before and my general method is in the post, Building Characters where I likened it to my daughter’s cosplay outfits. I skimmed…

Cover art for The Cancan Dancer and the Duke by Dara Young

Dara Young’s Inspiration for The Cancan Dancer & the Duke

Please welcome author Dara Young to the blog today. We’re celebrating her debut of THE CANCAN DANCER AND THE DUKE from The Wild Rose Press. I hope you all enjoy this story as much as I did! Since I’m often talking about inspiration and motivation, Dara thought she’d share with us where she gets her…

Spring It Forward

Spring forward. Spring Cleaning. Renewal. Rebirth. Awakening. These are all clichés associated with spring. Now, we all know that clichés become trite and commonplace for good reason. There’s a universally acknowledge grain of truth in them or tradition builds up and it’s just the done thing. So… What have I done to spring myself forward…

7 Creative Ways to Create Character Depth

My accountability group talked a bit before in our How I Write series in the posts on Building Character, but I wanted to take a closer look at some ways to create character depth, to make them unique, not just in your book, but in the market place. WHY do we want to read about…

Mentors I Have or Haven’t Known

Last week in my accountability group’s HOW I WRITE series, I talked about why I love historical romance. This week we’re talking about our mentors, whether they realize they influence us or not. Mentors Who Are Aware They’re Mentoring My local San Diego RWA chapter has a great image it shares with its members. The image…

Why I Love Historical Romance

Last week in my accountability group’s HOW I WRITE series, we talked about 3 Things I Love About My WIP. This week we’re talking about why we write in a particular genre and what attracted us to it. Also, we were asked if we like to read any genres we don’t or can’t write? Why? And…

3 Things I LOVE About My WIP

Last week in my accountability group’s HOW I WRITE series, we talked about 5 Steps from Dreams to Completed Goals. This week’s topic is “Share at least 3 things you like, love, enjoy, make you excited to work on your current project.” So for anyone out there who doesn’t know what a WIP is, it’s a…

5 Steps from Dreams to Completed Goals

Last week in my accountability group’s HOW I WRITE series, we posted 5 Things That Made Us Smile that week. This week’s topic is “Share tips on how you successfully set and completed goals.” I had a very specific set of writing goals in mind for last year and this year, with the RWA National convention…

All I Want For Christmas…

Last week, our How I Write series delved into our planning process, and since we’re all writers, we focused on plotting. Which inevitably led to my post on Plotting via Spreadsheets – Don’t Be Trapped in the Box. This week we were asked, “What’s on your writer’s wish list for Santa?” YOUR TURN: What’s on…