Write Now! Workshop Podcast: Write A Book, Change The World

Whether you're first starting out, or you've published several books, choosing which story idea to work on next can be difficult. We're creative and we've generally got a lot of ideas!Since I started writing when traditional publishing was pretty much the only way to go (unless you wanted to fill your garage with boxes of books and try to sell them yourself), I followed the traditional advice: don't write a series until you sell book one. So I had three "book one" books on my computer when I started self-publishing. Not helpful in generating optimum sales.This year, I did my first ever reader survey to find out what my readers most wanted to read in 2018. The results were surprising! There is an almost even split among the three series with the superhero series topping the list.Since the results weren't overwhelmingly in favor of a single series, I still have to do some real thinking about what I'm going to write this year in order to create the most useful production schedule.There are four main consideratio

Sometimes my creator brain gets nervous. It doesn't want to come out and play in public. Maybe it's nervous that someone won't like what it created. What do we do when that happens?The first step is to recognize the signs - are you putting off your writing or other creative endeavor, finding so many other things that "must" be done first?That happened to me this weekend, and it took a while for me to stop and ask myself if there was some reason I didn't want to do my creative work. Finally, I decided to write about how I seemed to be putting off my writing and podcasting! Haha!I just fixed up my WRITE NOW! Workshop Facebook page, so my first post was on this topic. I suggested that if anyone else was feeling the same way, we should just jump in and do it together! Together, we have more creative energy, we get more done, and we give each other courage.Writing about it gave me creative energy and I decided to make this podcast on the same subject. Are you feeling nervous about your creative projects? Let's jus

In 2016, author Tracy Reed decided to try to write and publish 12 titles in 12 months. She managed 13. This is her story.Tracy published her first novel in December 2014, then two more shorter titles in 2015. After a conversation with me and another writer friend, she decided that if other writers could publish a dozen or more titles a year, so could she!Each month found Tracy writing one book (a novelette, a novella, or a novel), editing another, and creating a cover for a third. It was a tight schedule for a pantser without a plan, and some months were rougher than others. When one story just wouldn't work, she had to write another in three days in order to make her deadline!Tracy takes us through her journey, talking about what worked and what didn't, and what she'll do differently next time. That 13-book year left her exhausted and she didn't do nearly as much writing in 2017, focusing more on marketing. In 2018, she's going to try to balance writing and marketing, and this time she has a plan going in so

Coming down off the holidays, I'm saying I'm going to eat better, but I still have some Christmas pecans I need to make. Standing in the kitchen, I'm thinking of recipes and how they work for any part of life, not just baking or cooking.For instance, the brownies I'm famous for came from a recipe my sister made years ago that I really liked. Over several years, I kept tweaking the recipe to make it exactly the way I wanted, but it still contained the same foundational elements. And it was so much easier to get to my amazing brownie recipe having started with a foundation than to muddle around trying to figure out how much sugar, how much cocoa, how much flour, etc. was the right amount.This idea of a foundational recipe can work for goal setting or time management or project management or even writing a book! Looking at your plans for the year as a recipe or a foundation may help give you a change in perspective and some ah-ha moments.You can try a few different people's plan for marketing or writing a b

I love new beginnings, and I'm a big fan of hitting the Restart button at any time. But sometimes we wonder if what we're doing right now is good enough. Is it the right idea or should we be working on something else?Then I'm reminded of the mustard seed, a tiny seed that can grow large enough that birds of the air nest in its branches. That's encouraging! Until I think about how seeds have to be buried alone in the dark, damp ground, and how the seeds are destroyed by the earth. Not encouraging - if you look at only that moment in time.But our lives are not a series of moments in time; all of those moments are making up a bigger whole. Sure, a seed gets destroyed - that is, loses its original form - in order for a plant to grow, but in the big picture that's the whole point!Similarly, our lives and our writing have these seed-moments. We start with a first draft, and then we start editing it, taking it apart, adding and deleting. It's not destroying the first draft so much as it's creating something new and

Marcy Weydemuller is an editor, writing teacher, and author of books for kids and adults. Today she is talking to us about setting. In many genres, setting is practically a character in the book. But a silent setting can also have quite an impact. It can be a mirror or a shadow of the character, the tone, or the atmosphere of any novel in any genre.Marcy shares a few examples of different kinds of settings from her book, Eight Strategies for Writing Innovative Settings. Think of setting as being part of the main character's journey. You can practice finding what to add to this setting-journey by walking down your own street and noticing all the details, thinking about how those details affect the characters/people living there.One book Marcy mentions as making great use of setting is Merrie Destefano's Afterlife: The Resurrection Chronicles.Setting can tie into theme, myth, metaphor and so much more. Marcy gives us so many ideas of how to integrate setting into our stories to make them richer and fuller!

I've been teaching a class called Going the Distance: Time and Project Management for Writers nearly every year for over a decade. I love it because I love helping people find a way to get what they truly want out of life. But how do you get what you want without sacrificing the wants and needs of your family?Sometimes you need to do what you like to do together, regardless of what other people think. Many writers say they've given up television, which is great for them. For my husband and me, we love movies and TV as well as books so this is something we do together for fun and relaxation. Of course, sometimes you have to say, no, I'm sorry but I have to work tonight or this weekend.Consider opportunity cost - I could get in 2 extra hours of writing a week if we only watched TV together 6 nights instead of 7. And a form of compromise might be - let's only watch TV together 5 or 6 nights a week so you get extra video game time and I get extra writing or reading time.If you have other people with schedules you

I recently listened to a keynote address by Ray Bradbury given in 2001 at The Sixth Annual Writer's Symposium by the Sea at Point Loma Nazarene University. In his presentation, Ray says that writing shouldn't feel like work, he wants people to envy him his joy. Writing should be fun!That really got me thinking about how I can emulate Ray's joy. For one thing, I can focus on the things that worked out instead of the things that didn't. I can focus on the great reviews my books have received instead of the number of books I sold. I can focus on how much fun I think my stories are and what a great time I have writing them instead of being worried that other people don't like them.If there's anything I wish for you in the next year, it's more joy! :-D

Today's guest, Kathleen Damp Wright, shares her stories about how doing in-person research for her novels is more fun and yields more interesting results. It also leads to more focused online research later.Kathleen Damp Wright is the co-author, along with Lauraine Snelling, of The S.A.V.E. Squad series for middle grade readers (Dog Daze, The Great Cat Caper, Secondhand Horses, and No Ordinary Owl), and Waiting for Sparks, a Harlequin Heartwarming series title. She also enjoys her online adjunct position teaching refresher business writing. You can find her on Twitter at @Kathy_Damp and on Instagram at @KathyDamp.While Kathleen and Lauraine knew a lot about dogs for their first book together - both adopt rescue dogs - neither of them had owned cats. When Kathleen first started researching feral cats, she learned that they are now called community cats. Important thing to know in case her readers know that!She asked friends, former students, and Facebook friends when she needed to know who owned cats or knew s

The difference between dreams and New Year's resolutions and goals is all in your head. How much do you believe in the dream? How committed are you to the resolution? A goal requires belief, commitment, and planning in order to achieve it.Although I recorded this episode in late December 2017, I want you to remember that you can always hit the Restart button, no matter what time of the year - or day - it is. Are you all tangled up in the multiple goals you had planned? Stop, and Restart.To begin, create a Master Goals List for the next year. Put everything on it - all the writing, the conferences, everything related to your writing business. Now add in all of your personal goals and events - school events, school holidays, family vacations, conferences, business trips, birthday/anniversary celebrations, everything.Now mark up your list, prioritizing what is the most important (and/or unavoidable) for this year, and putting a different mark next to things that may have to wait until next year. (This list isn't

In this first Encouraging Words episode, I encourage you not to let yourself get overwhelmed by kids and parents and finances and (un)employment and health and everything else in your life. I can't write when I'm stressed out and scared, but I'm a total planner. So how do I keep a balance?At some point in the last few stressful years, my husband said, "Let's just try to stay in today's box." His point was for us to work on and plan for what we could plan for and work on today, but we had to let tomorrow's problems and potential disasters wait for us tomorrow.It turns out it was an idea that changed the way we live our lives!Additionally, there is a section in the Bible where Jesus is talking about not worrying. In Matthew 6, He says we shouldn't worry about what we're going to eat or drink or wear because God knows what we need. Instead, we should seek first His kingdom, and all those things will be given to us as well. This reminded me of how John and I had started trying to live in today's box - n

Our guest today is Jacqueline Diamond, author of over 100 novels as well as How to Write a Novel in One (Not-So-Easy) Lesson, a book of lessons and helpful tips to help writers create better stories.A former Associated Press reporter and TV columnist, Jacqueline Diamond has won a Career Achievement Award from Romantic Times magazine, has finaled twice for RWA’s prestigious Rita Award, and has hit bestseller lists including Waldenbooks and USA Today. She has written in genres from romantic suspense, romantic comedy, and Regency romance to mainstream mystery, fantasy, and science fiction. She offers monthly specials for your Kindle on her website, jacquelinediamond.com, and her Facebook page, JacquelineDiamondAuthor. You can also find her on Twitter at @JacqueDiamond, and follow her on Amazon.The first thing you need to know about characters, Jacqueline says, is that they are the lynchpin of your book. They make people care about reading your story. Writers tend to start with characters like themselve

Chances are you own at least one blank journal. People have probably been giving them to you as gifts for years. Now you finally have a use for one of them! :-)There are at least four reasons why creating a Done Journal will help you in your writing career. For one, it shows the IRS or other taxing authority that you are not a hobbyist. You are actively pursuing a writing career and are officially in business.But on a more personal level, recording everything you get done every day in your writing business will help you feel you actually achieved something - especially as you approach the end of the year each year. You can scan back over the entries and notice how much you got done! Good on you!What you write can also help you plan for the future. What you've done and how long it took in the past will give you a basis for estimating how long things will take in the future. How long does it take you to write your average first draft? How long to get to a final, publishable draft? How long does it take your edi

Welcome to the WRITE NOW! Workshop Podcast! I'm your host, Kitty Bucholtz, and I want to encourage you to believe that you can write a book and change the world.In addition to writing, I also love teaching, and helping writers is one of my favorite things to do. On this podcast, I want to help you improve your writing and move your writing career forward.Each week, there will be three short episodes - because you may not have time to sit and listen for an hour straight. So on Tuesdays, I'll bring you a teaching episode, something you can apply to your writing right away. On Thursdays, I'll interview a writer or editor or someone else in the publishing industry who has valuable information to share. And Sundays will offer you an Encouraging Words episode. Writing can be a difficult and often lonely business, and we all need the occasional boost to keep us moving forward.In addition to the audio episodes, I'll often add video portions of the show to my YouTube Channel, Kitty Bucholtz. Not everyone wan