May 8, 2012

I’m Looking for an Artist

Illustrate a Children's Book!

Hey friends, I’m going to put out a children’s book, designed for the 2-5-year-old crowd, in e-only (Kindle, Nook, iPad). I want to price it at $2.99. It’s 32 pages, and the text is complete, but I need an artist to partner with me. Continue reading

Nov 2, 2011

The Perils of Love Triangulation

One or Two Heroes?

By Lisa T. Bergren

I just finished Julie Kagawa’s The Iron King, in which she sets up what I assume will be a long-term love triangle. And I just watched this YouTube video, in which a hard-core River of Time fan expressed her dislike over the fact that I introduced one of my own. Hang out among the young adult novel reviewer crowd for long and you’ll see that people are pretty clear on their preferences. Which surprised me. Until I started reading YA, and writing it, I’d never really thought about it before. I took it on a case by case basis. How about you? Continue reading

Aug 31, 2011

Pre-Release Angst

What an Author Thinks the Day of Her Book's Release

By Lisa T. Bergren

Being an author is cool. I mean, really cool. I love it. But it also leads to some unique stress. Tonight at midnight, Torrent, book 3 in my River of Time Series, releases. I’m rather manic and stressed, answering emails, fielding queries about Kindle and Nook versions, tweeting, Facebooking from my characters’ POV…And my head is swirling with thoughts. Here are some of them: Continue reading

Aug 20, 2010

15 Ways to Get Unstuck

There's No Such Thing as Writer's Block

Writer’s block? Uh, no. Think around it…There’s ALWAYS a way. I’m serious. I’ve gone through weeks (and even months) when I felt like I “couldn’t write,” but half my battles were usually won if I tried a different angle…

Writer Linda Ford asked fellow fiction writers what they do to get going again, when they seem stuck. Here’s her compiled list of advice (with a few additions of my own): Continue reading

Mar 5, 2010

Writing Tips

The best thing you can do as an aspiring writer is to read, read, read, especially the kind of books you’d like to write. Study your favorite books—how characters and plot and subplots develop, chapter by chapter, what principle action takes place…if you take the time to outline your favorite book, it might look a lot like what the author began with herself!

Subscribe to Writer’s Digest. It is a monthly magazine that helps aspiring writers of any genre with some craft basics. From it, I learned enough to write my first novel! You can too!

Study the market. It is difficult for an unpublished writer to get published, so you have to work every angle you can. What does that mean?

Target ONLY publishers who publish the kind of books you like to write! Continue reading