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Estate Planning ~ Making It Easy

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Every time I’ve given a talk on the topic of estate planning, I see fear and panic abound. Even mentioning it gives authors hives. Here is a low-stress strategy. The legal stuff Yes, you need a will (or your estate can disappear into contention for years). You probably need a living trust to move all of that IP neatly forward to your heir(s). But those are both matters for a lawyer. Find a lawy…

We Need to Talk About COVID

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As we enter our third year of the pandemic, writers of contemporary fiction face a dilemma: to write about the coronavirus or not.* In the past, diseases have formed a backbone for artistic storytelling—tuberculosis in La Bohème, for example, or AIDS in Angels in America—written while the maladies they discuss continued to spread uncontrolled. But are contemporary audiences ready to face storie…

Social Media Mistakes

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Marketing via social media can be an author’s full-time, unpaid job. Our publishers expect that we’ll do it well, consistently, in our author voice, making readers feel such a bond with us that of course they’ll buy our books, preferably by preorder or within the first week it’s out. A good portion of any marketing plan is based on the author doing more and more, and it can be exhausting. To ha…

Selecting a Plot Structure that Works for You

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Plot structures are not new. Everything from Greek tragedies to Shakespearean plays have been written in three- or four-act structures and their timing measured in beats. There are a ton of books and videos on the topic. Vonnegut shared his now famous “Shape of Stories” lecture. Bradbury, Harlan, Orson Scott Card, Kevin J. Anderson, and many others willingly share their own favorites and advice…

Laws of Attraction ~ Writing Sexual Tension

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Oh, sexual tension. What is it? Why do we need it? Is it that important? I’m going to explain it. I’ll explain that, too. And bite your tongue, yes it is! Encyclopedia.com gives us a clear and accurate definition, especially as pertaining to romance as “… often hidden or suppressed feelings of anticipation, excitement, attraction, and desire that may occur in relation to another person … a nece…

Mastering Your Mindset ~ Taking Positive Steps Forward in a Negative World

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Focus. Discipline. Choice. Manifesting. Positivity. As 2021 gave way to 2022, authors picked these and other powerful single words to use as their theme and guide this year after deciding enough was enough. Because, let’s face it, the past couple of years have been…a lot. We’ve faced a global pandemic, social unrest, and a level of ugliness that has made it difficult to focus on anything other …