To join the elite ranks of those who write consistently, you need to learn how to stay prolific over the long term. And for that, the number one ingredient is self-discipline. In Self-Discipline for Writers, bestselling author Martin Meadows shares his philosophy and strategies on how to build self-discipline as a writer and how to keep writing over the long term. Here are some of the most important ideas you’ll discover: - 3 foundations of self-discipline for writers (avoid a common mistake that almost always leads to failure), - 3 steps to a strong work ethic as a writer (learn how to develop a strategy for consistently hitting your word counts), - 5 types of self-doubt common among writers and how to overcome them (if you don’t believe in yourself as a writer, how are your readers supposed to believe in you?), - 7 tips on how to manage your energy as a writer—including not only the most fundamental advice, but also intricacies like discussing your projects with other people, capturing fleeting ideas, and reading your reviews (learn why optimizing your energy is key to consistent results), - why control is essential for any writer (and how to claim it), - 5 good business practices for more self-discipline (this includes some surprising thoughts on how to run your writing business to reduce frustration and increase productivity). Writing doesn’t have to be burdensome. You too can write with more ease, and most importantly, write and publish consistently so that you can enjoy a flourishing writing career. Let’s learn together how to accomplish this exciting goal.

    In this all-in-one resource, you'll discover essential novel-writing techniques, such as:How to best structure your research so that you can save time laterHow to card your story before you start writingWhat to consider when developing your cast of charactersHow to adapt classic story structures to fit your own ideas...and insider information on what it takes to get published, including:What agents do at those three-hour power lunches--and how it affects youWhat makes an agent instantly reject a manuscriptHow to correctly translate submission guidelinesWhat happens if you get multiple offers--or no offers at allPlus, learn about the publishing process from the firsthand accounts of such noted authors as Dennis Lehane, Kathryn Harrison, Jim Fusilli, Kathleen George, and others!

    Along the way, it’ll help you form the foundation you need to write a novel you’re proud of. You’ll learn to:• Strengthen the ideas you have and discover new ones, even when inspiration seems far away.• Expand your original idea into a fully fledged story.• Develop a fleshed-out cast of characters, without overwhelming yourself with complex formulas and “best-practices."• Apply structure to your story in a way that honors and refines your original idea. • Bring it all together in a final Master Outline, designed to guide you through every stage of writing your novel.Each day of this outlining challenge comes with easy to follow prompts and intuitive goals, streamlining the outlining process. By the end, The Ten Day Outline will have taken the stress out of planning a novel, so you’ll be ready to set out on your own epic writing journey!

    The act of writing, cycles of revision, and the confusing publishing industry can shatter a writer's confidence, leaving you feeling like an imposter, overcome with rejection. Survival--and success--requires commitment, honesty, courage, resilience, sacrifice, and miles and miles of heart.You have everything you need as a writer--it lies within, in the form of consistency and self-confidence. With Write Smart, Write Happy, best-selling author Cheryl St. John will help you unlock your skills, guiding you to overcome every hesitation, obstacle, form of writer's block, and procrastination habit you have. Within these pages, you'll learn to:Organize your writing life by using a planner, scheduling your yearly goals, and acknowledging career plans.Sharpen your saw by recharging your creativity, developing positive motivation, and creating healthy writing habits.Affirm your beliefs by overcoming self-doubt, learning to use affirmations, and altering your thinking.Conquer remaining fears by releasing tendencies towards perfectionism and establishing strategies for habitual success.Written with a no-nonsense attitude, St. John's "advice from the trenches" will help you take an introspective look at your own writing habits and life. Through examples and inspiration from writers who struggled with--and overcame--rejection and reservations, discover the path towards writing smarter and happier today.

    The contributors include Pat Conroy, Norman Mailor, Rick Moody and David Foster Wallace.

    You should never quit your day job, but your ultimate goal should be to quit your day job. It's an endless, confusing, and often controversial conversation that, despite our bare-it-all culture, still remains taboo. In Scratch, Manjula Martin has gathered interviews and essays from established and rising authors to confront the age-old question: how do creative people make money? As contributors including Jonathan Franzen, Cheryl Strayed, Roxane Gay, Nick Hornby, Susan Orlean, Alexander Chee, Daniel Jose Older, Jennifer Weiner, and Yiyun Li candidly and emotionally discuss money, MFA programs, teaching fellowships, finally getting published, and what success really means to them, Scratch honestly addresses the tensions between writing and money, work and life, literature and commerce. The result is an entertaining and inspiring book that helps readers and writers understand what it's really like to make art in a world that runs on money-and why it matters.

    Today, a blog is one of the most powerful tools a writer has at his or her disposal. Whether you want to connect with a potentially huge new readership or showcase your work and get published, a well-written, well-presented blog is essential.Packed with tips, advice, and inspirational stories from successful writers who blog, Blogging for Writers is an accessible guide that teaches everything you need to know to create a blog that you'll enjoy writing--and one that readers will return to again and again. No technical knowledge is required: Blogging expert Robin Houghton will take you through the whole process step by step, and you'll soon discover how to blog with confidence, substance, and style.

    I spent time looking for a book which would show me how a "raw" story was developed through drafts, with comments received and the changes made. Struggling to find such a work, I decided to create my own, being transparent and honest in the details. Using the story that gained me an offer of a place on a Master's in Creative Writing, SHORT STORY will take you through three drafts of the work.The book details not only the major revisions, feedback given by a professional novelist and an academic, but also has a bunch of tips from my writers toolbox condensed between the drafts. I hope that the process provides something useful for you, be it a tip from the writing toolbox, a look at the editing process, or motivation in knowing that you can do better than I did!

    

    More comprehensive than ever before--and now 1,000 pages--this revised edition describes the insider dynamics at hundreds of U.S. and Canadian publishers, with hundreds of names and specialties for book acquisition editors. Nearly 200 of the most powerful literary agents reveal invaluable tips, as if they were having a private conversation with a special friend. With detailed information on what to do (and what not to do) to break the code, break down the walls, and get that first book, second book, or thirtieth book published, bought and read, Jeff Herman's Guide is the go-to source for writers everywhere.

    

    More than 100 master tips from an expert editor, fiction ghostwriter and writing coach whose sales exceed 4 million copies. 'Nail Your Novel is like a personal session with a writing mentor.' What makes a reader fall in love with your book? Whether you write a story-based genre or literary fiction, it’s the characters. So how do you create fictional people who’ll keep readers hooked? How do you make them plausible, chilling, imperfect, lovable, intriguing, tormented or misunderstood? What if their lives are totally unlike your own? How do you write the opposite sex, historical characters, enigmatic characters who give little away? Villains? This book is a super-zipped digest of tips for creating irresistible characters, extracted from the tutorials in Writing Characters to Keep Readers Captivated (Nail Your Novel 2). Use them as a handy checklist to create and deepen your fictional people, a guide for self-editing, or a prompt for discussion in your writing group.

    But few have been written by literary agents, who receive thousands of submissions each year and who grapple with them on a daily basis. Even fewer have been written by active literary agents who are willing to write from the trenches and offer their perspective on why they reject manuscripts, and why they accept them. And no books have been written from an agent's perspective on what it's like, step by step, to work with an agent on a daily basis, and on how to assure that you maintain a long, happy working relationship with your agent.How to Land (and Keep) a Literary Agent is the first book written from an active literary agent's perspective that teaches authors why agents reject or accept manuscripts; why they decide to represent certain authors and not represent others; the best way to approach agents; the best way to work with an agent on a daily basis; and that offers them dozens of specific resources to make the difference in their finally finding the perfect agents for their work. New York literary agent Noah Lukeman, President of Lukeman Literary Management Ltd, has represented multiple New York Times bestsellers, winners of the Pulitzer Prize and American Book Award, National Book Award Finalists, and has himself written three critically-acclaimed books on the craft of writing, The First Five Pages, The Plot Thickens, and A Dash of Style. During his last 13 years as a literary agent he has read thousands of manuscripts and represented hundreds of book deals, and in this book he shares his insider's perspective, offers insight and practical tips about what works and what doesn’t. How to Land (and Keep) a Literary Agent is a must-read for any author serious about getting published. Geared for a broad range of authors, its subject matter is relevant to authors of fiction and non-fiction, screenwriters, poets--any serious author--offering principles that will help lead to success no matter what your craft. Practical and engaging, filled with exercises, anecdotes and sidebars, this 200 plus page book takes you on a journey, and will bring you that much closer to finally landing a literary agent.How to Land (and Keep) a Literary Agent includes: * 10 Reasons Why You Need an Agent * 9 Steps to Building Your Bio (for Fiction) * 8 Ways to Build Your Non-Fiction Platform * 13 Factors to Consider When Evaluating an Agent * 24 Free Resources for Researching Agents * 11 Fee-Based Resources for Researching Agents * The 4 Musts of Submitting * 4 Keys to Successful Follow Up * 3 Resources to Protect you from Agent Scams * 5 Ways an Agent Can Take Advantage of You * To Use a Book Doctor? * 7 Ways to Protect Yourself in an Agency Agreement * To Hire an Attorney? * What it’s Like to Work With an Agent (a Step-by-Step Timeline) * A Publication Timeline Chart * 15 Ways to Assure a Great Relationship With Your Agent * 6 Reasons to Drop Your Agent * To Self Publish?"Lukeman’s advice is practical—and often entails multiple, time-consuming steps—without a hint of the flakiness that creeps into many writing guides."--Publishers Weekly (regarding The Plot Thickens) This 100,000 word file includes two additional books written by Mr.

     You know it’s been rattling around in your head since you were young. You want to write a book because the call of the muse has been getting stronger. And, perhaps you have heard You Must Write a Book. The two keys to success for aspiring authors is consistency and a little bit of time. Honorée Corder and Brian D. Meeks are full-time authors who have written over three dozen books combined, both fiction and non-fiction. Honorée is an expert in non-fiction and Brian has penned tomes across five fiction genres. They’ve combined their knowledge to lay out the best practices and answer the most common questions they hear from new authors. The Nifty Fifteen will take you from the blank page to finished book by wiping away the fear that is born of not knowing where to begin. In addition, you’ll be given access to Brian’s Beautiful Gears, which is a session by session look at how he wrote his 13th novel in just fifteen minutes per day. You’ll see the unedited work with all of its errors to show how a full-time author is worried about one thing…get the first rough draft out. The edited version, all polished up and without the daily comments, will also be made available upon its release. Lastly you’ll be given exercises that will make the process easy to undertake. Everyone has a story to tell. It just takes a little time each day, so why not give The Nifty Fifteen a read.

    Life coaches with new methodologies for living on purpose . . . energy workers who've discovered new ways to prevent disease and teach self-healing . . . everyday heroes and heroines who have made it through difficult circumstances and want to inspire others to do the same. In today's tumultuous world, we need these voices in the marketplace. Moreover, publishing a book has never been so simple, accessible, or affordable as it is today. So why are so many thought leaders, healers, and change-agents stuck at the starting line?This book will light the way--offering a simple, step-by-step path that takes authors from concept to finished book. In it, publishing veteran Kelly Notaras demystifies the publishing process and gives writers the tools, insider information, and inspiration to start strong, keep going, and get across the finish line as quickly as possible.