Writing a novel is no laughing matter. Or is it? Incorporating humor into your writing can add depth, lighten the mood, and make your characters more relatable. But how do you add humor without turning your novel into a comedy? Here are six things to keep in mind so you can strike the right balance.…

Writing a compelling opening for your novel isn’t optional, it’s essential. That initial half-page of Chapter One is the first impression agents, publishers, and most important, readers get of your writing style and skill and often determines whether they’ll purchase your book or not. The good news is most people will give you a few…

You encounter your new next-door neighbor when you’re out walking the dog and they tell you how the movers still haven’t showed up, which meant they spent their first night in an unfamiliar house sleeping in their clothes on the floor, huddled together in their sleeping bags. Then the two of you talk about how…

Have you caught the Wordle bug yet? Each morning The New York Times posts a new Wordle puzzle up on the internet and you have one day to solve it. The answer is a five-letter word and you get six tries. Each guess must be a valid five-letter word. After you type in your guess…

We all know we need to calibrate our daily activities so we don’t allow work to overwhelm us and take over our world. At the same time, if all we’re doing is cooking exotic dishes and watching NetFlix instead of spending time doing stuff that pays the bills, sooner or later, we’ll get fired/lose that…

There’s nothing worse than feeling as though your writing career is out of your control, that others are in charge of your fate. For many of us writing is our second career. In “real life” we’re lawyers, accountants, police officers, teachers, entrepreneurs, retailers, and scientists. For myself, I spent years as the CEO of a…

This month I hosted my 78th interview for Hear Us Roar where my guests are debut authors of women’s fiction, so it’s a perfect time to share some tips from the last 2+ years about using this medium as part of your book marketing package. As of February 2021, there are 1.75 million podcasts out…

Last month I shared that I’d signed up for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo for short). I’d never done it before but thought I’d give it a try. So first things first. I WON (okay, hundreds of thousands of writers did but I was one of them). I wrote 50,111 words during the month of…

I’d always scoffed at folks who diligently signed up every November to pound out a new novel. I mean, I was a writer. It wasn’t a hard job, not like piloting a plane or finding a cure for cancer. All I had to do was put my butt in the chair, turn on my laptop,…