Your Creative Writing Checklist

Sometimes I read analyses of creativity. My experience is that they don’t help people be creative.

Reading Masters and Johnson is informative about sex. It will not give you an experience of an ecstatic act of love. Studying diagrams of waltz movements tells us what steps we should take. It doesn’t give us the feeling of a lovely dance. Reading instructions about improving you golf swing will not give you fine feeling of a good drive.

Here’s a checklist to give your creative writing wings.

Finding the RIGHT word

“The difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between the lightning and the lightning bug.” –Mark Twain Please follow and like us:

Become a Professional Writer

    There are three rules for becoming rules becoming a professional writer: 1) Write every day. 2) Write every day. 3) Write every day.                                                             […]

Writing Together? Miracles Happen.

  We Lived to Tell the Tale of MOONLIGHT WATER We collaborated on MOONLIGHT WATER, our latest book, just published. Our marriage survived. We even had fun writing it together. It is a miracle. Magical realism, adventure among the Navajos, bad guys, romance, starting a new life, and a peek into the other side is […]

You Are A Writer. We Are Your Toolbox

  Are you nurturing your writing dreams? What are you waiting for? Oh.  Wait… Before we go on, we have a free book for you.  It is a wonder, and here it is, 4/5 – 4/7. ZADAYI RED – click here to get it! Why the Pro Writers Toolbox? With 40 published books and fifteen […]

Ten Ways To Get An Idea When You’re Stuck

I’ve done a lot of things that work to get my writing rolling and some things that didn’t work. Here are ten I like. All of them operate on a single principle.

Don’t think about the question you want answered. LET IT HAPPEN. When you get an idea, quit and go straight to the keyboard. And… Read on!

Why Go With A Traditional Publisher?

Today I play devil’s advocate. Meredith and I are big fans of indie-publishing, or self-publishing, for lots of writers under lots of circumstances. But since we let the case for self-publishing be made in good style by guest bloggers Kaitlyn Davis and Aaron Pogue, we need to speak for traditional publishing now. I’ll address points […]

Celebrate Chinese New Year’s with a Free Book

The Red Hot Empress is free, it’s yours and it’s red all over. It’s our gift to you from Saturday, January 25, through Tuesday, January 28. Join us in a spirit of joy and prosperity! Kick back and Celebrate Chinese New Year’s a little early with Meredith Blevins’ book of magic, wild eccentrics, and one boy’s […]

Our Joint Baby Book, Out of the Nest

Meredith and I just sent our 35th book to our editor. It is finished, fini, that’s all she (we) wrote. It’s the second that we’ve, entirely, written together. Macmillan (TOR Books) will publish it next January. An emotional moment for us, pushing that SEND key. So, it’s out of the nest, good-bye baby book. Do […]