For Writers

For many months in 2017-18 my dear friend and fabulous Pitch Wars co-mentor, M.K. England, and I hosted a live stream about books, writing, writers, and much more. Sadly tech troubles after one of us moved deep into a rural area has slowed us down a bit, but here are some old episodes. Hopefully we’ll be up and running again soon!

 

Episode 21: Begin as You Mean to Go On- Getting Focused and Re-dedicating to Writing

Episode 20: Setting Goals for Reading and Writing

Episode 19: Best Books of 2017 + 2018 YA preview

Episode 18: Expert Worldbuiling Tips with YA Fantasy author Margaret Owen

Episode 17: Getting Deeper Into Your Characters with YA author Leigh Mar

Episode 16: Character Interiority — Digging Deep Into POV 

Episode 15: Being Happy for Others Even When It Sucks

Episode 14: Agent Offers, The Call, and Hard Decisions with YA author Leigh Mar

Episode 13: Fast Drafting Tips for NaNoWriMo (or anytime!)

Episode 12: Worldbuilding, Part 2 (Start-to-Finish #6)

Episode 11: Worldbuilding Pt. 1 with YA fantasy author Kristen Ciccarelli (Project Start-to-Finish #5)

Episode 10: Story Structure (Project Start-to-Finish #4) with YA fantasy author Joan He

Episode 9: Books that Shaped Us

Episode 8: Creating Characters (Project Start-to-Finish #3)

Episode 8: An (excellent) Chat with MG/YA Author Cindy Baldwin

Episode 6: The Messy Transition Period before Starting a New Project (Project Start-to-Finish #2)

Episode 5: Choosing Your Next Idea (Project Start-to-Finish #1)

Episode 4: Geek Out with Rena Barron

Episode 3: Pitch Wars Retrospective

Episode 2: Writing Rituals

Episode 1: The 10k Crisis

*******

These are the absolute must-read craft posts that I go back to again and again (not a few of which are written by my friends.*grins*). Note: I’ve borrowed some of this with permission from M.K. England‘s list of resources for writers.

For General Brilliance and Insight on Character Creation

Joan He: Diversity in YA: Culture is More Than Character

Plot and Structure

Characterization & Craft

Everything Resources

  • The Ultimate Collection of Resources for Writers on PublishingCrawl
  • Tools for Writers: Worksheets and more from the authors of The Emotion Thesaurus
  • The Magic Words: Writing Great Books for Children and Young Adults by Cheryl B. Klein
  • Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass (From DMLA Literary Agency. There are a million editions, so buy the most recent one. The workbook is great, too)
  • Understanding Show, Don’t Tell: And Really Getting It by Janice Hardy
  • GMC: Goal, Motivation, Conflict by Debra Dixon
  • Anything by K.M. Weiland
  • After the First Chapter blog series by Amanda Rawson Hill

Podcasts