I’m looking for a...

Thanks for stopping by! Beta readers are worth their weight in if not gold, cheesecake. You can really help take a manuscript to the next level with comments and spotting problems when I’m just to close to the work to see it myself. So I’m on the lookout for a set of beta...

Pacing Your Novel 1: Th...

  In my survey of your biggest rewriting challenges, many of you indicated pacing of your story among the most difficult.   What is Pacing? Pacing refers to how slowly or quickly time passes in the story: the pace of time’s passage. It’s important to realize that...

Announcing Smooth Draft...

I’m so excited to formally announce Smooth Draft! As many of my friends and readers know, in addition to writing full-time, I also work as an editor. I’ve worked with MLR Press, Ravenous Romance, and most recently Silver Publishing. I’ve also taken on private freelance...

Why Beta-reading Is Not...

When I mention my editing business, I often hear writers say, “I don’t need that. I have beta readers. Why should I pay you for something I get free?” That’s a great question. And I have some great answers. Beta readers are great for top-level impressions on a...

Lessons Learned #2B: Ad...

To follow up on the lesson I posted yesterday, here’s a tip someone told me about how to keep POV from shifting within a scene. Many writers don’t even seem to realize they are doing it and this will help. Take the role of the POV character and write in first person. This...

Lessons Learned #2: Why...

[Lesson #1] There are many reasons why I had to reject stories from the anthology. The most obvious is that the plot wasn’t very good. While this is somewhat subjective, there is no easy way to say that some stories didn’t do much for me. On a less subjective note, there were...