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Finding Your Voice: Fighting the Fear of Sounding Stupid
Life as a Part-Time Professional Writer One of the things I’ve dealt with in life are people that discount your opinions or your knowledge. We’ve all been there. You’re having a conversation with a person about a particular topic, you offer your knowledge or thoughts, they get an odd look on their face, and come…
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The First SH**** Draft is Done!
It’s been two years (and counting) since I published Planetary Feedlot. Even though I had a pretty good idea where I wanted to go with the sequel at the time, it seems like it’s taken forever to get it on the page. Especially since my debut novel was supposed to be just that, a stand-alone…
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Raven’s Eye: Chapter 2
Asha was grinding a poultice under the careful eye of Chalese when the first wails rose into the natural calm. It started with a scream which shattered the air, surprised birds rising with a flurry of wings. It pierced the sky like an arrow, grabbing hearts and pulling them toward whatever horror awaited. A new…
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Life as a Part-Time Professional Writer: Debut Novel Realizations
AKA: Trying to Climb the mountain in Flip flops When I published my first book (I say it that way because it will not be the last), my boyfriend got all excited. He loved my book, and he was sure everyone else would too. In his brain, we’d be rich in no time. No, he…
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15 Minute Stories: All that Glitters
The Prixiator surveyed his flock with a smug satisfaction. The pews were filled with the highest ranking families in the kingdom. The men were dressed in the finest silks, the whitest shirts, with gold watches and silver canes. The women were similarly decked out in whalebone corsets, silk, lace, gold, silver, and sparkling gems. All…
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What’s Up? Summer Edition
Ever have one of those moments where life gets busy and you have to choose what to stop focusing on? The “I’ll call them next week” or “I’ll deal with that when things slow down” moments? Then you blink and you realize its been two months (or six) and you still haven’t done the thing?…
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Learning my craft: 15 minute story writing
So they say that writing is a craft, and like any craft, it takes time to get good. You need to practice and learn new skills and techniques. Find out your strengths and weaknesses. There’s a lot of ways to do this for writing, according to the internet. But I recently remembered something I tried…
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15 Minute Story : The Ice Dragon
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My Life as a PTPW: Making words while the sun shines
As I sit typing this, I have a Roomba running around my feet knocking into chairs. A bread machine with a loose something in it is noisily making dough for dinner rolls. The oven is steam cleaning. I’m contemplating if its worth getting the fall decorations (that I meant to put out in September) out…
E.R. COOK 