By N. M. Cedeño We’ll start with assessments: I started 2022 with the goal of getting short stories published. In aid of that goal, I set...

by N. M. Cedeño Many writers find motivation in challenging themselves in various ways. Some attempt to write a novel length manuscript...

by Kathy Waller I wrote the following for my personal blog to answer a “challenge.” I intended to post it at the end of September...

by K.P. Gresham I’ve just returned from the Writers’ Police Academy in Appleton, WI. The brainchild of retired cop, Lee Lofland, The...

Anyone who lives in Texas knows that Hollywood’s version of Texas and the actual Texas are very different places. Mostly, we Texans roll...

by Kathy Waller I said to my critique partner this morning, The whole project is stinky it stinks it’s fatally flawed just nothing no...

by N. M. Cedeño For writers, setting and meeting goals can be done in a variety of ways. Some people count words produced in a given...

By N.M. Cedeño A number of the stories sitting in files on my computer were written years ago, some over ten years ago, and have never...

by N. M. Cedeño Nothing makes a writer feel more like a know-nothing novice than a marked-up manuscript from an editor. Whenever I get a...

By K.P. Gresham “Good cover design is not only about beauty… it’s a visual sales pitch. It’s your first contact with a potential reader....

by Helen Currie Foster Okay—Mom Genes is such a great title, it couldn’t not be used. But Abigail Tucker’s new book of that title doesn’t...

by Helen Currie Foster We read to learn, we read to be entertained. We begged at age three, “Tell me a story.” The stories began, “Once...

By N. M. Cedeño Previously, I wrote a post covering some of the basic rules for submitting short stories to anthologies, magazines, and...

I’m working on a mystery novel—I’ve been working on it for years, but now I’m working on it—and am faced with dilemmas too numerous to...

by Helen Currie Foster In the back of the closet I recently unearthed my mother’s old Caswell Massey “Gardenia” bubble bath. The...

By N. M. Cedeño Do you write in more than one genre? Do you blend genres or sub-genres? I do. Some sub-genres seem to lend themselves...

Authors, how do you name your characters? Name Cloud by Wordcloud The average person only has to come up with names when they are naming...

by Renee Kimball “Your intuition knows what to write, so get out of the way.” ― Ray Bradbury “. . . And what, you ask, does writing teach...

by N. M. Cedeño Writers, if you don’t already assess your writing habits at the end of the year, you should consider doing it. Many...

Try to imagine a mystery without its setting. What? You’re having trouble? Open a mystery and be denied the setting. What? You’re getting...