Category: The Author’s Journey

Hello, dear reader. In my last post, I wrote a fantasy blurb by breaking down the individual components of best-selling blurbs in the genre, then used those pieces to create my own. The result was very well received. I posted my blurb to a group that specialized in blurb feedback, and other than a few minor edits, most said it was well-written. One person even said they write blurbs for a living, and mine was very good.

That gave me the confidence to take that analytical approach to the next level. Continue reading “How to Become the Best Epic Fantasy Writer”

Book marketing is great, but…

It’s become clear that it’s only part of what you need. I’ve had a lot of thoughts on this subject for a while, and needed to type them out. Hope that’s okay to share them here. Continue reading “A Focus on Craft for Self-publishers”

I have a personal experience I’d like to share. For the past two years I’ve been studying the art of writing and self-publishing, and I’ve been doing my best to establish writing habits. But I struggled a lot to maintain the routines I set up. Sometimes I would just not have the energy, or I’d experience what I thought was burnout. Sometimes I’d go for whole weeks before being able to re-apply myself to my established schedule. This frustrated the heck out of me, as I really wanted to be more productive, but found it incredibly difficult. How could I finish all the books I wanted to write if I couldn’t even get myself out of bed early enough to write? I had all these plans, but couldn’t find ways to stick to them. Needless to say, I was frustrated.  I thought maybe I was just inherently lazy. Continue reading “Health, Diet, and Writing”

This is going to be a slightly more personal post, which I don’t plan to be a habit here at The Nerdy Novel. However, it’s a question I think begs an answer,  particularly for those of you who are considering self-publishing your book for the first time. Continue reading “Why I Chose to Self-Publish My Book”

The Lord of the Rings popularized many concepts that now seem cliche. Part of its success owes to an incredible balance of the three essentials of storytelling: plot, character, and setting. We’re going to talk about how all three essential ingredients, and what you can do to maintain balance between them.  Continue reading “The Basics of Storytelling: Plot, Character, and Setting”

Hey guys today we’re going to talk about the strengths and weaknesses of various storytelling mediums like books vs movies, that kind of thing. I’ll also talk about which forms are my favorite methods to tell a story, and why. Continue reading “Types of Storytelling Media”

I first came across the idea of writing to market in a book by Chris Fox entitled, simply enough, Write to Market. It’s a great book, and I highly recommend you read it. I’ve linked it below. I’m not going to go into extreme detail in this post on how to write to market (I’ll save that for a future post). But this post will specifically cover the issue of writing to market vs. writing what you love. Is it even possible to do both? But before we answer that, let’s cover some basics. Continue reading “Write to Market and Write What You Love”