Turning Leaves and Going Deeper with Andrew Pyper

Turning Leaves Writing Retreat ~ Writescape

There are so many ways for writers to invest in their future career as an author.

Ultimately, as a writer, it’s your meandering pathway to follow until you get published… However, what if there were a secret in jumpstarting your career and taking the express highway to publishing, eliminating the many wrong turns along the road?

Would you want to know this secret?

Of course you would… or you should. Read more

Branding Like a Boss

This month, my writing group has taken an interest in developing their author websites and all I could think of while they were discussing this topic was… “Please don’t look at mine as an example.”

Why?

Because I’m one of those authors that still hasn’t decided on how to brand myself. You look at my landing page on my website and you will have no clue as to what I write. This is because I’m prone to genre-hopping. This allows me to write anything I want, whenever I want. I like to be in control. I don’t want to be known for only one thing. Yesterday, I worked on Literary Fiction and today I worked on a Suspense-Thriller novel. Who knows what I’ll work on tomorrow?

What’s wrong with that? Read more

Under the Influence

Under the Influence of Nick Petrie ~ Photo by Lori Twining

As writers, our job is to create stories. Unique stories. It doesn’t matter whether they take shape inside poems, short stories or novels, because either way, we are still developing distinctive characters and a plotline. We are telling a story from beginning to end. The question is, how do you come up with the uniqueness of the story, when there are already billions of stories in existence. How will your story stand out from the rest? It may not be that unique after all. Or is it? Read more

Home sweet home

home

The Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines home as “one’s place of residence” but also as “a place of origin”, which are often two very different places.  If this is the case, where truly is home? The concept of home is a familiar theme in many stories.  Characters often need to return home for one reason or another.  Perhaps to take care of a loved one, or because of a death.  Sometimes it is to find their way home during a long adventure, or even to fight an evil murderous clown.  Over the years I have left and returned to the Owen Sound area for various reasons, though thankfully none of them was ever an evil clown.

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10 Reasons To Consider Using a Pseudonym

Name-Badge-LLB4

Pseudonyms, sometimes referred to as a pen name are more popular than you may think. This topic of discussion came up at our recent Ascribe Writers’ meeting, as some of our members are looking into using a pen name for their works of fiction.

 

10 REASONS TO CONSIDER USING A PSEUDONYM:

  1. PERSONAL – So your mother won’t know it was YOU, who wrote this week’s best-selling sex novel. If she knew, she might die of embarrassment when her friends find out and start talking about how in the world her daughter would even know about this “icky topic”… even though, these same ladies have ALREADY secretly downloaded their copies of the novel and are half-way through reading it. (This would also include your spouse and your children dying of embarrassment. The workplace water cooler chat and the playground top-of-the-monkeybars chat would never be the same again.) Read more