Sourcebooks Casablanca Romance Authors

When readers pick up a book they read it in a few short hours. But behind every finished product there is professional editing, critiquing, the authors polishing, first draft, plotting, daydreaming, researching, hunting down an idea with a club and a machete… The craft when the reader reads should be invisible, and yet if the craft wasn’t there the story wouldn’t hang together. Authors know about themes and motives (even if they aren’t there in the plotting or the first draft they appear gradually). They know about the three act structure and how to increase tension and also release it just a little. They know about end of scene and end of chapters so you turn the page because you have to know what happens even though you have to get up in six hours! Even though I have been writing (as an adult) for a decade I still buy and read craft books. I read novels and try to work out why it worked…or why it didn’t (that is harder because sometimes the voice just wasn’t my thing, it happens ...

by M.L. Buchman I have a lot of words in my life. I'm an writer, a speaker, and for years I was a project manager (which is all about communication, trust me) and even a teacher of project management. On top of that I married a librarian. You would think I would know the power of words. I keep learning there are more. So, here are some of the words I will be carrying into the New Year. And they apply to any art/artist. THE VOICE Pharrell Williams joined The Voice  this year as one of the judges. "Wait! That's music?" If you think that, you really need to watch this show. It is talented singers, many with very impressive credentials themselves, performing in front of four recording superstars. If you listen to the advice and make these simple substitutions, you'll see what I mean. When they say: Music, think: Words When they say: Song, think: Story And when they say: Voice, definitely think: Voice Pharrell is my kind of artist. At one poi...

Today I'm going to talk a little bit about my process of writing. I've been writing fiction seriously since 2009, and the way I go about things now is totally different than how I got started. In the beginning, I didn't plot SQUAT. I sat down in front of the computer and the muse breath took me away. It was fun, letting my creativity loose and seeing where the story took me. When I sat down to write, I had no idea what kind of story would fly out of my fingers. It was an adventure. But then I finished something and decided I wanted to publish it. And therein lay the problem. My muse breath didn't care about structure. The story I'd made wasn't satisfying because I didn't understand the way the story was put together. Some people instinctively structure their stories well. They can pants their way through any book, no matter the length, and be totally fine with it. Those people are so not me. Back in 2011, I attended my very first writer's conference...