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Friday Fiction: A Short About Reincarnation & Love (and in need of feedback)
I’ve been researching the idea of reincarnation lately. I’m not exactly sure why this particular concept has been stuck in my brain for several weeks, but it has. I’m in between books right now, having begun a new manuscript, but not sure where that one’s going, and the idea of reincarnation—a love story about reincarnation—keeps popping into my mind. Last week, I posted a poll on my Instagram story to see how many of my connections actually believe in reincarnation, and the result was a resounding 50/50. I’m not sure what I believe myself, but the concept sure is interesting. I’ve met people in my life that I have felt…
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Podcast 9 – Building Your Story
Good afternoon! Storytelling and putting it all together—that’s the topic of today’s quick podcast. How do you begin to construct your story? Do you write in a linear fashion? Do you write the ending before you begin? Do you write out-of-order and then piece it all together? That’s the chat we’re having today on the podcast. And I’m sure I’ve left things out as I try to keep these recordings short and sweet. If I’ve neglected a way in which you write, please post in the comments and share with others. As we continue to build this community of writers, it’s important to share and boost others up. As a…
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New: Monday Podcasts on Steph’s Scribe to Kick Off Our Writing for 2020
Hello there, writers, readers, and friends! I hope everyone is having a good start to 2020. As life is busy and hectic and crazy, and as sometimes we just want to listen to something instead of read something, I thought I’d add a new feature to Steph’s Scribe with a weekly Monday podcast. Whether it’s about writing or books we are reading or things that just inspire us, I’ll be doing short podcasts that are showcased here on the blog. As most of you know, I have been teaching since 1993. First and foremost, I consider myself a teacher, and I get so much joy from helping others work toward…
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Book Marketing & An Infographic
One of the things we independent authors have to continually do is market ourselves, our books, and what we are working on presently. THIS IS THE HARDEST PART OF THIS PROCESS — TRUST ME. I am no pro at it, believe me, but I strive each day to work on it and learn something new. Therefore, this morning I told myself I would design a marketing piece—take a new tactic—and that piece is the infographic below that showcases each of my fiction novels with a brief description of what they are about. I’m posting it below for feedback and to hear from other indie authors about what you do. What…
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Writing Tip: Making Your Characters and Dialogue Realistic
*** Yesterday on Instagram, a fellow writer I follow who follows me back asked for input from other writers. Her question was this: How do you write authentic characters, and then how do you make them sound convincing in dialogue? As someone who has written three fiction books and teaches the subject of writing, I have some advice I can offer. I may not be perfect, and I may be an indie author, but I think I have some ideas to share that may be helpful. I enjoy offering tips to beginning writers because we’ve all been there. These tips are from experience and encompass the best advice I can…
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Writing Prompt Challenge
So, last night I posed a writing challenge to see who wanted to try and write a short piece of flash fiction (300-400 words) around a prompt. I posted three. I got no takers. But I did it. I chose the third. I love writing prompts because they force you to immerse yourself in a scene, setting, or situation right away. They force you to be creative, and to use your creative juices in the best possible way. The challenge was to write approximately 300-400 words. Here’s my result of Prompt #3. The Young King The young King’s hair was a rumpled mess, his clothes strewn across the floor, his…
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Book Promotion for Inn Significant
It’s looking like my new novel will be available in two weeks. I am down to the last few changes, and soon, my friends, it will be in your hands. I wish the process could be a quicker one (for all of us, believe me!), but producing a novel takes time, especially when you write, edit, design, and market it yourself. That’s why it’s called independent or/or self-publishing. We are jack of all trades when it comes to this hobby. So today, I’m sharing a promo piece I put together for the book that I’ll be using to help promote it. I got the idea from an advertisement for a…
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Handling the Insecurities of Publishing A Novel
*** It’s a challenging endeavor. I’ve done it twice now with fiction, and twice with nonfiction books. And I’m about to do it again when I release my latest, third fictional novel. There will always be anxieties that manifest themselves into insecurities about putting our work out there. The tendency to feel nervous about it is normal. We’ve invested a lot of time and energy into our stories, and we hope people will appreciate that time and energy regarding our work, too. But there are no guarantees. Some people will love it, some will think it’s just okay, and some will downright dislike it. It’s the way of the world,…
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Friday Fiction | She Said, I Know What It’s Like To Be Dead
If you love the classic story of A Christmas Carol featuring Ebenezer Scrooge like I do, I hope you’ll be amused by today’s Friday Fiction. I honestly can’t remember the last time I posted a short piece of fiction. I haven’t written flash fiction is so long. Today, I’ve attempted to write a short fictional story using a prompt from Brian Kiteley’s book, The 3 A.M. Epiphany. If you are a writer, and you don’t have Brian’s book, you should get it along with the sequel, The 4 A.M. Epiphany; they both contain writing prompts to get you thinking—and writing. I worked hard this summer to finish my third novel,…
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Day Trip to Oxford and Easton, Maryland (where my new novel is set)
My mom and I typically spend a day together before my kids get out of school for the summer, and today, our day trip took us to Oxford, Maryland. This trip was for fun, but it was also for another reason: we had to do a little research because my new novel takes place there. I like to use the names of real places in my settings to make the fiction feel as real as possible. Therefore, it was up to us to do some legwork so I can finish writing this novel and keep it as true to the setting and feel of Oxford as possible. As I have…
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That Magic Moment When It All Clicks—Writing A New Novel
*** Here’s how this story goes… I published Beneath the Mimosa Tree in 2012. Baseball Girl followed three years later, and this week I am celebrating it’s one-year anniversary as it launched last March 6. At the time I began writing my first novel, I had simultaneously started writing another bit of fiction. When I had to make the choice between the two in which to fully invest my time, I picked Beneath the Mimosa Tree because it had been a story that had lodged itself in my brain for 20 years. I have no regrets about publishing it, and I always feel a sort of sentimental sweetness about that…
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What Writers Owe To Themselves
Writers—Do you do some of your best thinking in the shower? Typically, my best ideas come to me at the most inopportune moments when I do not have paper and pencil handy, like when I’m commuting or observing something with a cart full of groceries or taking a walk through the neighborhood. Sometimes the creative juices flow when I’m not prepared to greet them, much in the same way a hostess of a party who is still in sweats and inappropriately dressed as her first guest rings the doorbell is not ready. These creative juices are important, and if we are lucky, they flow directly and consistently into our writing,…
