Annie Nicholas writes paranormal and science fiction romance. Read about her hot vampire thrillers, werewolf romantic stories, alpha shifter and sexy alien romance.

Featured Post

Not His Werewolf Release Day!

Book 2 of Not This Series It's release day! After being disowned and labelled human because she can’t shift, Betty Newman rescu...

Monday, May 10, 2010

Writing 101

To start, let me express how I do NOT consider myself an expert. I don’t have any degrees in English or Writing and have just started my career as a published author. The point of this blog, and the series to follow, is to impart what I do know.

I write paranormal and sci-fi romances so my focus will be toward the romance genre but I don’t see why it can’t be used for other types of stories.

I remember when I first started to take my writing seriously and didn’t have a clue where to start, what questions to ask, and who to ask them. Stumbling over my mistakes, going from different forums, yahoo groups, and websites I found what I needed but it sure wasn’t easy.

As I write each blog, I will return and edit previous blogs to provide links, which are in lime green so click on thes for more info. These will be the topics I’ll be discussing, one for each week:


- Show vs Tell

-POV  (point of views)


-Catching the Editor/Agents Attention (first line, query, and synopsis)

-How to submit *whip*

-Plotting

-Character development

I may add to this list and some of these will be written by guest bloggers because I still struggle with a few. *cough punctuation cough*

For any aspiring author reading this, welcome to the beginning of your journey. The first and most difficult thing any writer has to overcome is allowing a stranger to read their story. It’s a window to a piece of your soul and it’s hard to hear it’s not perfect. No one can help with this part but know you gotta do it at some point if you want to get published.

Here is a list of writing forums that I’m aware of. There might be more and I’ll add them to my list as I come across them.

1. Romance Divas

2. Absolute Write Water Cooler

3.Gather the Forum

You can lurk and read what info you need at these places or take a grand step and introduce yourself. These are great places to meet like minded people, talk shop, goof off, and learn.

Here’s a list of critique groups:




D. ERA

You can also acquire critique partners at the forums I mentioned above.

So this is the first step. Start sharing and don’t let anyone discourage you. There’s no such thing as a bad writer, only an inexperienced one. If you want to add information to these list just leave it in a comment with a link. Got a question? Ask away, there is no such thing as stupid question either.

11 comments:

Rebecca Royce said...

What a great idea Annie!

Angela said...

I like your direction, Annie.

Jen Black said...

I'll be checking back to see what's what and how you're doing!

emerson said...

thank you, Annie.

Annie Nicholas said...

Thanks, I'm hoping to meet expectations. :)

Victoria Roder said...

I love this idea too, Annie. Great job & I'm looking forward to the information. There's always room for improvement as a writer.

Sandy said...

Good for you, Annie.

It's always a good idea to help those just starting out or needing to learn more. Oh I forgot, we're always learning more. Wink!

Gabby said...

This is a good idea, it doesn't seem like there are a lot people out there who are willing to help aspiring authors. It's nice that you willing to share your experience, I appreciate it especially since I am an aspiring writer.

Anonymous said...

Hi Annie,
What a great idea. I've added your blog to my favourites so will return often.

Barb

cindystubbs said...

Great idea. I'm having trouble getting inspired, reality keeps hitting me over the head with a baseball bat. Hope to read how to create inspiration!

Annie Nicholas said...

I've add inspiration to list. Good idea, Cindy.