By DiAnn Mills @DiAnnMills Ah, setting, the frail stepchild of fiction. How often we neglect this vital member of story, insisting character, plot, dialogue, and emotion are much more important. We dress her in rags, have her clean the chimney, then criticize her for lack of beauty. Setting is the…

by Bethany Jett, @BetJett Someone will critique your work – it’s inevitable – and you don’t want the first experience on your project to come from your publisher. Therefore, having a few trusted people available to review your work can be helpful for your writing career. Officially or unofficially, this is your critique group.…

By DiAnn Mills @DiAnnMills Last week I finished a book and sent it to my publisher. Celebration time! Relief and satisfaction soared through me for completing the writing project. As always it was difficult from the time I researched my story idea until the editing stage. Editing is as much…

by Bethany Jett, @BetJett One of my favorite online mentors, Brendon Burchard, has a key phrase: "Protect your mornings." Let's apply that beautiful advice to our writing and schedule specific times to actually work on our craft. Know Yourself. Are you a morning person? A night owl? Do you work…

By DiAnn Mills @DiAnnMills A writer writes. A writer edits. A writer submits for publication. A writer is rejected. A writer ? How do you handle rejection? Do you crawl under your desk and quit? Or do you view the news as an opportunity to rework the writing project and…

By DiAnn Mills @DiAnnMills We writers have habits, some quirky, that help us begin new writing projects. Today I’d like to share with you how I organize my thoughts and preparations before writing chapter one, line one of a new novel. I’m mostly an organic/pantster writer, but some things I…