How can we *Enter the Writing Business*?

Find the answers at Edie Roones' blogger site.

Coming soon, the paperback and e-book bundles for Inspiration for Writers.

What is *Discovering Your Plot*?

What do writers want from plot?
What do writers need from plot?

Are those questions the same? Not really.

As wordsmiths, we writers know that want and need are two different words.

• ·         The want is a circumstance that we writers can control. We want plot specifics to help us craft story and exceed reader expectations.
• ·         The need is a circumstance of obligations from reader expectations of story. While readers may want the comfort of the genre elements (the tropes), they also wish to have their interest and curiosity piqued.

Can we writers deliver on the expectations and the surprises in order to please our readers?

That’s the involved question that Discovering Your Plot hopes to answer.

This guidebook covers plot structure and the necessities of genre expectations so we writers can anticipate what readers want.

• ·         It is NOT a list of tropes by genre or even a list of tropes that every novel should have.

It explores the six most common plot structures.

• ·         It is NOT a list of characters for plot or story. It is not a list of the “17 characters your novel needs” or the “characters used by famous authors”, as listed on social media sites.

It is a detailed examination of the major sections of a novel.

• ·         It is NOT a word-based or page-based formula of a novel’s structure.

By the end of Discovering Your Plot¸ writers will have the tools to construct a story as well as diagnose problems with pacing, tension and suspense, and sequencing events.

Success x 3

Here's a lovely reward pix. I'm late posting -- as I was late all through November.

Lots of disruptions and distractions in November, but I managed to work through a non-fiction project that I'll publish early in 2020. It's actually a combo project :: three things coming together as one.

Nonfiction because I had no brain for creative work even though I have fiction hanging over me. Still, some things get done, other things percolate a while longer ~ as long as I'm not making bailiff coffee.

Do you know what "bailiff coffee" is?  It's the coffee that bailiffs make for jurors, thick enough to keep a spoon upright, strong enough to keep everyone thinking, caffeinated enough to keep everyone determined to do the job so we could get out of there (which means reaching the consensus that a verdict is). I've served on two juries, one of which didn't want to reach a verdict, and I was grateful for bailiff coffee.

Still am.

I don't make bailiff coffee for myself--but I do have my two mugs every morning. Keeps me determined to do the job even when everything else conspires to disrupt.

So, November dropped the fiction and picked up nonfiction. Three projects came together to get credit for the National Novel Writing Month ~ which means that I had to switch my projects to have success. Projects finished / revised / edited / corrected / formatted and now waiting on covers.

I guess that means -- watch this space for more information ;) !

It may look a little like this

and this

and quite a bit more.

And all this is typical of the Writing Life.

Track the Secrets of the Author Brand

Read about your author brand here.

Read the first secret here.

And then the second secret.

And third and fourth and more secrets here.

Buy here!

Discovering Your Author Brand!

What's the secret for any successful writer? Having readers recognize her books.

How do readers recognize books? Books are branded.

Who does the branding? The marketing department.

Who handles the marketing for a self-published writer? The writer.

How can I succeed at branding when I don't know anything? Use Discovering Your Author Brand to understand the secrets of branding a book, a series, and you the author.

Writers Write Words

If you want to improve your writing, start at the basic level: words and sentences.

Just published is my essential guidebook for enhancing Discovering Sentence Craft covers figurative and structural elements, from metaphors and symbols to zeugma and polysyndetons.

The guidebook is A to Z, auxesis to zeugma.
words and sentences. 

What more could you want? Find it here.

The Horror!

What's after Halloween? 

The great HORROR.

National Novel Writing Month. NaNoWriMo.

That sounds like a monster, doesn't it?

> Succeed with the Number 1 indicator of writing success: Daily Word Count Tracking. Use the *Think/Pro* planner.

> Getting stumped? Consult *Discovering Your Novel*, everything you need to know, from idea generation and story foundations to publication and promotions.

> Stumbling over the basics? Use the 7 lessons every professional writer knows, in *Think like a Pro*.

Discover more on M.A. Lee's author page.

https://www.amazon.com/M.A.-Lee/e/B019PD3Z7W/

Just Released ~ Discovering Your Author Brand

Discovering Your Author Brand is book 7 in the Discovering set of the Think like a Pro Writer series.

It does exactly what the title says: helps the new writer heading for self-publication understand the multiple keys to creating a great cover, a series brand, and an author brand.

The designers at Deranged Doctor Design have been guiding me through cover branding from the very first book. And they're managing the design for this set of books.

I wanted something whimsical and eye-catching and metaphorical. That's what writing is to me. I browsed around a few image sites and came up with a cluster to use for the Discovering set.

Author Branding is like the stamp of quality, and books unlock doors to new worlds. 3D took the image, punched up the beauty, and here it is.

Author Branding depends on three things, consistently worked:
1] three little words
2] clever iconography
3] clever market copy

Discovering Your Author Brand is much more than those three things. It's packed with explanations based on examples, some of which you can find here.

It offers worksheets to guide you through your own development of an author brand. Remember, book b4 series b4 author persona.

As a bonus is the extra oomph of a script pattern for a trailer (which reduced can become a clip, short enough for TikTok or Instagram).

Interested? Find Discovering Your Author Brand here.

Newest Release ~ For New Writers

Do you struggle with developing characters? Try this guidebook.

One of the hardest things to do in writing

is to create characters that readers will care about,

that will make them have to read on.

Noah Luke

Discovering Characters is like investigating a house we want to buy.

No, I’m serious. Characters have an exterior façade that we comment upon as we drive past. Through the windows we catch glimpses of interior lives.

Even in cookie-cutter boxy cliques, characters have individual characteristics, just as the suburbia ranch houses have their garden plantings and the urban row houses have their painted doorways. 

These small touches create individual homes in neighborhoods.

Some characters enjoy the bright city lights. Some are loners, nestled against a national forest.  Characters, houses—each have individual personalities. Some are blingie, with the latest décor while others enjoy the comfort of yoga pants and old sneakers.

As writers, we capture these individual characters and save them from the cookie-cutter boxy stereotypes. We delve into interior rooms for glimpses of formative baggage. Finding their backstory is a search through attics and cellars, storage closets and garages. Characters hide their pain and fears, painting them over and adding distracting artwork.

Our job as writers is to find every detail of our characters then use snippets so our readers will see our characters as they drive through our books. We hint at the foundations while opening doors to their plans and purposes.

Discovering Characters is designed to help writers find the exteriors and interiors, public and private. We’ll dig around the foundations and climb to the roof. We’ll explore the open rooms and the storage closets. We’ll peek into rooms inhabited by such characters as diverse as Elizabeth and Darcy, the Iron Man, Aragorn and Frodo, Travis McGee, Medea, Macbeth, and Nanny McPhee.

Five areas comprise this guidebook. Just as characters—and houses—are individual, this info is individual. You won’t need every bit. Dip in and out, skim around. When you reach locked rooms, come back and explore to discover the keys to your characters.

1.      Starting Points ~ offering templates and character interviews

2.      Classifications ~ common and uncommon ways of discovering characters

3.      Relationships ~ couples, teams, allies, enemies, mentors, etc.

4.      Special Touches ~ progressions, transgressions, and transitions for character arcs

5.      Significant Lists ~ archetypal characters and much more

Discovering Characters, with 44,000-plus words, is the second book in the Discovering set, part of the Think like a Pro Writer series for writers new to the game as well as those wanting to up their game.

Get it here!

Writer M.A. Lee has been indie-publishing fiction and non-fiction since 2015. She has over 25 books published under her pseudonyms. Visit www.writersinkbooks.com to discover more information.

Start Writing: How-To

A former student texted with a question about how to start writing. I texted back--which turned into a really loooooonnnnnnngggg text.

And which I expanded for the September Blog Posts for the Writers Ink nonfiction website. Have a read.

The Ever-Expanding Novel

I love writing . . . 

Even when the story takes hold and throws my whole schedule off.

I have a schedule, by the way, to give me hope for the next bright shiny thing. (That's an important writing tip!) In my previous existence, I lived for weekends and holidays. Now, every day seems like the weekend and a holiday!

In my writing world, my current novel is consuming many more writing days than planned. That's a great thing for readers who love Regency mysteries. Not so great for writers looking forward to the next great thing.

The Hazard of Secrets, or HoSecrets as I call it, is book 10 in the 12-book Hearts in Hazard series, a loosely-linked series of English Regency mysteries. The plan, way back in Autumn 2015 when I published the first three books, was to finish the series in 2019, publishing three books a year. I planned a skip in 2016 to publish Digging into Death, the first book in the Isabella series.

In the HnH series are 3 Game novels (Secrets / Spies / Hearts), the 3 Danger novels, and the 3 Key novels. Now I'm writing the first of the last three, The Hazard of Secrets.

HoSecrets has expanded on me. First, the Cute Meet trope turned into dangerous events with a press gang, human trafficking, and street urchins. Then, the murder mystery turned into a murder with a double attempted murder and a contemplated murder followed by a second actual murder. And none of those are connected to the poisoning!

Originally, the novel was going to be 50,000 words. Breaking a rib slowed me down through June. Then the press gang took over, and the street urchins were snippy little allies. I backed up the publication date to July 15 then July 30 then August 15.

Well, it's not going to publish on August 15. No way, no how, not possible. I'm plugging along, though, really happy with the story, constantly getting ideas from my impish muse (who's currently dancing around a tree), and trying to avoid most distractions. Summer is full of distractions!

As for those 50,000 words ~

I hit the mark of 50,000 words when I started typing chapter 16 on July 26. The rough draft was in chapter 23 at that point, with a best guess-timate of 58,000 words for the word count. (I distinguish between my rough draft and my typing draft, the second much more cleaned-up than the first.)

I typed to 60,000 words on August 6. On Saturday August 10, I closed off the laptop at 68,817 words and chapter 20.

I'm really hoping the book is not going to 85,000 words, but I'm currently drafting chapter 27 with three chapters (or more) still to come. With an expected 30+ chapters, I still have one-third of the manuscript to type. Then it goes to proof-plus before publishing.

This ever-expanding novel happened last year with The Key for Spies, at over 95,000 words, 30,000 more than planned.

My new deadline date for HoSecrets is before Labor Day (I've decided to go vague on projected dates), but who knows? The hero may have to come riding ventre a terre (a lovely French phrase that I first encountered in Jane Aiken Hodges' Watch the Wall, my Darling).

Hearts in Hazard Book 11 ~ The cover for The Hazard for Spies is here. I'm mulling over lawyers and a crime boss and disguises. And spies, of course!

Hearts in Hazard Book 12 ~ The cover for The Hazard with Hearts, the last planned book in the series, is currently at the designer. HwH will be my most vintage gothic. I may even have a ghost! Since I'll probably be writing during October, that's appropriate.

I hope I don't scare myself!

As a writer, am I scared about my schedule and the time taken up by The Hazard of Secrets? Nope. I'm relishing the revealed story.

And that's what matters.

And the future?

2020 will see the finish of the Isabella Into Death series. I hope to turn the Hearts in Hazard e-books into paperbacks, which will make my sister happy.

I'm going to finish off a couple of series under my pseudonyms as well as a craft-writing series. I have another series running under one of those pseudonyms, and I want to play in that world a little bit more with two more novellas.

Before I finish with 2019, I'm looking at upwards 7 books. I'm filled with excitement!

Another 1st Birthday this month!

My first planner, Think / Pro: A Planner for Writers has its first birthday today.

Two covers available, with the floral cover available with free shipping for Prime members.  The second cover is the lamp cover.  You can find it on Amazon by looking for other versions.  Or click this link.

Discovering Your Novel ~ Newest Release

What kind of writer are you?  Planner or Plotter?  Pantster?  Puzzler?  Muse Muffin?

Whether you use the mosaic method or a chronological one, whether you outline every scene or let the words flow, the method does not matter.  What matters is the end goal.

So, what’s the end goal with your writing?  Just to write?  To publish?  Fame and fortune?

Plenty of frittery flutter-bys write and write and go nowhere.  As for fame and fortune, those can’t be guaranteed.

However, when your goal is publication, Discovering Your Novel is the guidebook to help you overcome the Sisyphean task of first word to publication.

With the goal of completing a novel in 52 weeks, this guidebook can be self-paced or tracked week by week for persistent success.

·         If you have a half-completed manuscript that you’re lost in, use the Foundations and Visioning sections to work your way out of the labyrinth.

·         If the story’s a mucky mire more like quicksand than a novel you can build on, use the Analysis section to clear away the mud and weeds.

·         Like a long ball of string, the multiple charts will help you keep track of where you’ve been and where you will head next.  Printable charts are available for free at the website address provided in the guidebook

·         When you complete the manuscript, what do you do next?  The sections on Harvesting and Finishing answer these questions as they guide you to creating a professional career as a writer.

Launch your writing journey at your current location on the publishing road—incipient idea or character sketches or story plan or struggling manuscript or completed novel looking into publication.

Track your progress with daily word counts recorded on the charts.

Learn the devices and definitions that pro writers have swirling in their heads.

Maintain the discipline and preparation that keeps pro writers at work, no matter the interruptions.

Writer M.A. Lee meandered along the road of unfinished manuscripts and completed novels with nowhere to publish for many years before she decided to drive to her own destiny.  If you’re tired of gatekeepers and pay-to-play schemes, if you’re weary of elitist traditional publishers and you’re eager to jump on the self-publishing juggernaut, then Discovering Your Novel will give the guidance you need.

Sample pages are available at www.writersinkbooks.com.  Purchase at this link.

No ghostwriters or work-for-hire writers or other collaborators are ever used in the writing of M.A. Lee’s books.

350,000 Words: Stop NaNoWriMo Playing, Start Publishing

From the Raison d'Etre section of my newest writers guidebook, Discovering Your Novel.

How many miles have you traveled on the road to writing your novel?  If you’re not far on that road, Discovering Your Novel will help you drive through those problems.

if you keep backing up, if your engine stalls, if the myriad of roads confuse you, then

No one else can write the novel of your head and heart.  That’s a road you have to find and follow.  Yet this workbook, like a mountain guide, can guide your journey to publication.

Publication is the goal, isn’t it?  Not just to write but to share your writing through publication.

I ask because I recently met a NaNoWriMo[1] participant ecstatic about her eighth year of participation after “winning” for the previous seven years.  Winning means that she achieved the word-count requirement.  In seven years she’d written 350,000 words (minimum) yet still had nothing published.

350,000 words.

Let that sink in.  Most novels are around 75,000 words, with the epics around 120,000.  That’s at least four good-sized books, or three-plus epics.  This writer may have submissions to agents and editors with traditional publishers or small presses.  All I truly know is that she still wasn’t published.  7 years & 350,000 words and not published.

Ouch.

. . . .

If you're tired of playing at writing and want to start publishing, but ....

If the book you're writing seems to be going nowhere ....

If the plot is scrambled or the process fried you up ....

Discovering Your Novel can help.  Check out the Table of Contents in the Look Inside feature of Amazon to see if my guidebook has the guidance you need.

---

[1] NaNoWriMo = National Novel Writing Month, every year in November.  The group that runs NaNoWriMo (pronounced Nano-Rhi-Moh) has a website with all sorts of templates for your perusal and playtime.  Writers who sign up to participate have to write 50,000 words in one month, which is about 1666 daily.

Browsing Books

I used to love browsing bookstores.  I would go inside a cozy retailer and browse the genre sections of mystery and fantasy.  I could spend hours, and I would drop much more money than I should have with every visit.

Then bookstores got bigger and less cozy until they felt like a big box store.  The people helping no longer knew anything about the books.  If they couldn't find it on the computer database, they didn't know what to do.

I miss small bookstores where the owner at least knew something about the book or knew who else liked those books.  Even visiting Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi, a mecca for book lovers, didn't recall those wonderful old days of the small cozy bookstore with an in-the-know owner.

Oh well.

It's still possible to sample a book before purchasing, from the coziness of your living room.  This is one of the reasons that I first loved Amazon as an online book retailer.  The LOOK INSIDE feature allows readers to taste a book before they buy.

Here are two images from the Amazon website and the link to my book's page.

DiscNovel: What are you waiting for?

If you've traveled the hard road of writing a novel only to turn back because the journey seems too hard, then my newest guidebook Discovering Your Novel is for you.

Here are two more sample charts as well as the link to the online retailer Amazon.  Available in ebook format only.

Discovering Your Novel: Another Sample

Here's another sample of a chart from the Foundations section of my newest writer guidebook Discovering Your Novel.

Purchase Here.

Discovering Your Novel: The Foundations

Here is the link to the Foundations charts that occur in my newest writer guidebook, Discovering Your Novel.

Foundations Chart

Just Released! Pro Writer Advice

Just released is my Discovering Your Novel guidebook, 

for any writer struggling to get through a manuscript and publish it.

What kind of writer are you?  Planner or Plotter?  Pantster?  Puzzler?  Muse Muffin?

Whether you use the mosaic method or a chronological one, whether you outline every scene or let the words flow, the method does not matter.  What matters is the end goal.

So, what’s the end goal with your writing?

Just to write?  To publish?  Fame and fortune?

Plenty of frittery flutter-bys write and write and go nowhere.  As for fame and fortune, those can’t be guaranteed.

However, when your goal is publication, Discovering Your Novel is the guidebook to help you overcome the Sisyphean task of first word to publication.

With the goal of completing a novel in 52 weeks, this guidebook can be self-paced or tracked week by week for persistent success.

·         If you have a half-completed manuscript that you’re lost in, use the Foundations and Visioning sections to work your way out of the labyrinth.

·         If the story’s a mucky mire more like quicksand than a novel you can build on, use the Analysis section to clear away the mud and weeds.

·       Like a long ball of string, the multiple charts will help you keep track of where you’ve been and where you will head next.  Printable charts are available for free at the website address provided in the guidebook

·         When you complete the manuscript, what do you do next?  The sections on Harvesting and Finishing answer these questions as they guide you to creating a professional career as a writer.

Launch your writing journey at your current location on the publishing road—incipient idea or character sketches or story plan or struggling manuscript or completed novel looking into publication.

Track your progress with daily word counts recorded on the charts.

Learn the devices and definitions that pro writers have swirling in their heads.

Maintain the discipline and preparation that keeps pro writers at work, no matter the interruptions.

I meandered along the road of unfinished manuscripts and completed novels with nowhere to publish for many years before I decided to drive to my own destiny.

If you’re tired of gatekeepers and pay-to-play schemes, if you’re weary of elitist traditional publishers and you’re eager to jump on the self-publishing juggernaut, then Discovering Your Novel will give the guidance you need.

Sample pages are available at www.writersinkbooks.com.

No ghostwriters or work-for-hire writers or other collaborators are ever used in the writing of M.A. Lee’s books.

What I'm Writing Now: The Key with Hearts

I'm running far behind deadline on the Hearts in Hazard series.

Last year, I should have put out three HnH books:  The Key to Secrets and The Key for Spies (several months late, just published in mid-January) made it to press.

The Key with Hearts is my current struggle.  Too many commitments that drag me away from the story.  Too many distractions that make it too easy to walk away when I do have time.