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:

- The Basics (formatting, to be verbs, basic sentence structure, and punctuation.)

- Show vs Tell

-POV  (point of views)

-Description

-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:

A. Rom Critters

B. Romantic at Heart

C. RWC

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.