In this edition of Your Author Toolkit, Rebecca Martin covers what you need to know to attribute the sources and quotes you use in your writing.
A Change of Attitude
Last year was the first year we did a homeschool co-op with our children. It was just our second year of homeschooling and we were still getting used to our “new normal.” The co-op just met twice a month on Fridays, and the classes were fun and interesting. But, on […]
Three Different Types of Editing (and why the title “Editor” is confusing!)
“I sent it to an editor and it came back with so many errors!” “My beta readers said I really need an editor, but I had it proofread, so I don’t understand what they mean!” “My manuscript is completely finished and now I just have to get it into […]
6 Dates to Disaster, by Cynthia T. Toney
Life can be horribly unfair, especially if you are a teen. Or so you may think. Sometimes parents can be right, but not all adult decisions seem just and reasonable. Unfortunately, adults usually have the last word. In her third book in the Bird Face series, 6 Dates to Disaster, […]
From the President’s Desk – Failure Leads to Success
“Has it ever occurred to you that a life without failure is a dead life? Because you learn by failing. If you don’t try things, you’ll never learn anything. You’ll never accomplish anything.” Catherine Doherty, Foundress of Madonna House Thomas Edison tried and failed on hundreds of attempts to create […]
Monday’s Writing Tips – Part 2 of Edits 2
Now that we have done about half of the edits on the chapter we have been working on, it should be greatly improved. Let’s look at some other important features. The First Sentence- So many authors spent endless hours perfecting the first line of their novel. They have been […]
Transitions – How to get your character from here to there
One area of writing craft that doesn’t get a lot of attention is that of writing transitions. You’ve gotten to the end of a scene, or maybe just to the middle, and the characters need to move to a different location, or perhaps some time must pass. How do we […]
The Catholic Fiction Critique Group
“I remember the trembling, nausea, and inability to focus that hit me when I first submitted a chapter to a critique group. That was many years ago. Those symptoms persisted for several years. Despite the agony, I continued to submit chapters and to give critiques on others’ work, because I […]
10 Steps to Indie Publishing
These are the best of times for authors—and possibly the worst of times! The changes in the publishing industry over the past five years are nearly as significant as the advent of the internet. In fact, the two developments are intertwined and build on each other. We all know traditional […]
What’s our Mission?
Part 2 of How to Form and Facilitate a Critique Group As I wrote in my post yesterday, I presented the non-fiction critique workshop at the Catholic Writers Guild Live Conference last week. I drew from my experience as facilitator and co-facilitator of two different critique groups to demonstrate how […]