Barbara V Evers

A Badge My Blog Won a Few Years Ago I subscribe to several writing-related blogs because they provide great insight to the world of writing and publishing. Here are some of my favorites: Writers Write : This one is my favorite because it covers a large spectrum of writing-related topics Writers Digest Guide to Literary Agents : Provides articles from debut authors, info on new agents and the markets they are seeking, and other great info from Writers Digest Where Writers Win : Covers lots of info about marketing, writing, indie publishing, and then some Fantasy Authors Blogpost : I write fantasy, so blogs focused on the genre help a lot. This one is written by Phil Athans  who has taught world-building classes for Writers Digest. Magical Words : Several of my favorite fantasy authors-Faith Hunter, David B. Coe, Misty Massey-contribute to this blog with insight into the life of an author and guidance for aspiring writers. What blogs do you recommend?

Over the past week, random writing topics floated through my mind. With each one, I thought:  Yes! I can write a post about that one. Why this week? I entered a query contest on Twitter that pits my first page and query against other writers. Lots of agents will see the top 32 entries, so it's worth the time. To keep us all distracted while we wait for the first round selections, they are hosting a Twitter party where we answer questions about our writing . On Monday we tweeted where and how we write. I decided to be playful with my answer (it's ok, a lot of them are doing that) and said this: I can write in a room, I can write facing doom, I can write in the shower, it doesn't matter the hour. Pretty clever if I do say so myself. But seriously folks, I do "write" in a lot of places. Just this morning, I was lying in bed and working through parts of my story line. I create while laying down a lot, especially before rising to start the day or before f

Image courtesy of Pixabay.com Start your story with the inciting incident. Hook your reader with action. Any writer familiar with writing rules knows these two points, but knowing and following them are two different things. What trips us up? Usually everything that's happened prior to the inciting incident and action. We start the story and think:  Wait! The readers don't know this or this or this... So, we try to tell them what they don't know. Backstory, everything important to the current story, becomes a data dump. What is a data dump? A data dump interrupts the action to tell the reader what they don't know. It's telling, not showing. For example: Rita raced to the locker room, heart pounding at the shouts and thuds coming from behind the door. She knew Jane and Sarah hated each other, had done so since kindergarten when Sarah stole Jane's gingersnap cookie during snack time. Ever since then, the lines had been drawn. Sarah pranced ar

Courtesy of Pixabay.com A funny thing happened after last week's post, How Do You Know You're a Writer ? While wandering the internet, probably via Facebook, I ended up on Disqus . After a brief examination, I decided to join. The Disqus site states: "If you publish content, our platform can increase reader engagement and give you the right tools to grow. Even better, it’s simple to install and free to use." What's not to love about that? So, I joined and followed three groups, including a writing one. This group doesn't allow you to self-promote (I know, I know, the Disqus description implies otherwise), so my blog post last week was taboo, but they did allow me to share this from the end of last week's post: What makes us writers? The desire to share, to tell. The pressure of words building up in our brains, yearning for release into the world of print. I enjoyed the discussion as many members of this community chimed in. Then, some

Sunrise in Myrtle Beach Writers' conferences are gearing up for the summer and fall, so I thought I would share part of a post I wrote seven years ago after attending the South Carolina Writers' Workshop (now known as South Carolina Writers Association) conference in Myrtle Beach that year. The keynote speaker that year was Joshilyn Jackson, and she reminded us that only crazy people try to write.  Why?  Well, if you're a writer, you: Spend most of your day alone , typing (or staring) at a keyboard Examine mundane objects trying to create a new and exciting way to describe them Venture out in public to analyze the behavior of normal people (you do this everywhere you go, actually) Wake up in the middle of the night with the most amazing prose running through your brain Get up and write down those musings in the middle of the night or pray that you'll remember them by morning Do not remember those musings by morning, of course, because you're awake