Author Tools: Blogger LinkUp

Being an indie author can be liberating – but it can also be isolating. Maybe you belong to groups on Facebook, LinkedIn, Goodreads and more. In an attempt to get the word out to more people, you write guest posts for each other’s blogs – but in the end, you’re really “socializing” in the same circles. How do you expand that?

Author and entrepreneur Cathy Stucker started Blogger LinkUp for exactly this purpose – “to help bloggers get exposure for their content and find content for their blogs.” How does it work, you ask? Well, let me tell you, and yes, it’s free. Continue reading “Author Tools: Blogger LinkUp”

This is Your Brain on Writing

I used to write first drafts longhand. Yes, with my actual hands using a device they once called a “pen,” which is not the same as that stylus-thing you use at the bank or on your MaxiPad. And paper: lots of paper in lots of marble composition notebooks, at least fifty of which are currently on a shelf in my closet. Many trees died for my filthy habit. But I was not ashamed because they were bad trees, bad, misbehaving trees that jumped into traffic and collided with people’s cars. Bad, naughty trees.

Continue reading “This is Your Brain on Writing”

Sneak Peek: Curiosity Killed the Sphinx and Other Stories

Curiosity Killed the Sphinx and Other StoriesToday we have a sneak peek from author Katherine L. Holmes’ short story collection, Curiosity Killed the Sphinx and Other Stories.

Curiosity Killed the Sphinx and Other Stories is a collection of short fiction exploring the complexities of life. Laying the profound beside the mundane, author Katherine L. Holmes creates rich and complicated characters who search for identity, meaning, and purpose within a world often dangerous and sometimes even cruel.

A couple clashing with early computers, a divorced woman finding her scattered family to be strangers, a girl running away to the shop where her parents’ antiques were sold, Midwestern college students in weather and water emergencies – these are some of the conflicts examined by the author.

Curiosity Killed the Sphinx and Other Stories  is available on Amazon.com, Amazon UK, Barnes & Noble and other online booksellers.

Here is an excerpt from Curiosity Killed the Sphinx and Other Stories: Continue reading “Sneak Peek: Curiosity Killed the Sphinx and Other Stories”

How Long is a Piece of String?

Graeme K. TalboysIn the distant past when typewriters still roamed the earth, people would ask me: “How long should a book be?”

Being the contrary soul that I am, I would answer: “How long is a piece of string?”

Annoying as it was (and it led to people searching out bits of string long enough to strangle me), there was a truth there. A book, any book, needed to be just the right length to complete your intended narrative in the exact amount of detail appropriate.

Observant readers will notice that last paragraph is in the past tense. Personally I would still say a book needs to be just the right length to complete the narrative, but I’m just a writer, so what do I know? Continue reading “How Long is a Piece of String?”