By Aaron Gansky @ADGansky When you finally take the plunge into your writing career (that is—you begin to think of yourself and define yourself as a writer, published or not), the first thing that should change is the way in which you read. While you will continue to read for…

By Aaron Gansky @ADGansky Good friend and co-author Diane Sherlock recently blogged about the similarities between writing a novel and training for a triathlon. For sure worth reading. Take a minute to follow the link and check out what she has to say. It prompted me to look at the way I…

By Aaron Gansky @ADGansky I value strong openings, not only as a writer, but as an editor. When writing first pages, it will serve you well to remember that your openings (especially the first page) serve one primary purpose, and that is to establish your authorial authority. Essentially, you’re announcing…

By Aaron Gansky @ADGansky You’d think deserts would have predictable weather patterns: Deathly hot, Hot, and Not as hot. But here in the High Desert of California, we enjoy (or suffer) unpredictable weather patterns. The desert, for us, is not so much a lack of weather. It’s weather at the…

By Aaron Gansky @ADGansky Recently, I talked a bit about a movie I saw that did a good job of setting things up and bringing them to fruition. While not the main point of my post, it reminded me of a principle Bret Anthony Johnston taught me some time back. Before he…

By Aaron Gansky @ADGansky The last class I taught at the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writer's Conference was how to write explosive short fiction. It’s a topic near and dear to my heart. As an editor of The Citron Review, an online literary journal specializing in flash and micro fiction,…