Series are more popular than ever. We’re in the age of binge-watching television shows and instant gratification. Following TV trends, planning a series can be beneficial for writers too. There's a lot to consider when planning a series, author Jamie K. Schmidt shares her tips for planning your next successful book series.
How to Become a Writer: A Step-by-Step Guide for Authors
Introduction
The dream of becoming a writer burns bright in many. Whether you envision yourself crafting captivating novels, penning thought-provoking articles, or weaving tales for the silver screen, the written word holds immense power. But the path from blank page to published author can seem daunting. Fear not, aspiring wordsmiths! This comprehensive guide will answer your – How to become a writer?
Find Your Niche: Ignite Your Passion
The first step is identifying your niche. What ignites your creative fire? Do you have a passion for storytelling and are a specialist in history? Perhaps you possess a keen eye for social issues and yearn to give voice to the unheard. Maybe you simply love to craft fantastical worlds and enthralling characters. Regardless of your inclination, honing in on your passion is crucial. It will not only make writing more fun, but readers will be attracted by your work because of your excitement.
Create a Passion for Reading to become a writer
Reading is not just a pastime for writers; it’s a masterclass in storytelling. By immersing yourself in different genres and styles, you’ll absorb the nuances of language, sentence structure, and plot development. Pay attention to how authors build suspense, create vivid characters, and evoke emotions. Analyze what resonates with you and what feels forced. Read more
Why writing books is a career like no other, and 9 takeaways for doing it
I’ve had an email from a high school student who’s writing an English assignment on careers he would like to follow. He said:
Would you answer a few questions about your job journey? I’m very interested in what you do.
His questions were fairly standard, and they made me realise how most creative careers are anything but. They’re unpredictable and weird.Here are my answers, and I’m really…
How David James Poissant Became a Writer.
Check out the latest entry in my friend Kelcey Parker‘s series “How to Become a Writer.” I met Jamie Poissant when he came to Miami for a reading a couple months ago, and you’ll never meet a nicer, more down-to-earth person. Plus his writing is fantastic in every sense of the word.
Soul Food for #Writers: Best new #books on #writing.
We all need to continually improve our skills, and writer are no different from any other profession. Writers need encouragement, guidance, and good advice on the craft and life of writing to grow and prosper. Fortunately, several new books have come out in the last several months to provide this virtual mentoring. Here’s my list of recommended new books on writing, based on advance review copies…
Want to be a full-time indie author? Besides loving to write, here are some great traits to have:
Being a voracious reader. The strongest writers tend to be strong readers. Spending a lot of time reading the kinds of books you want to write can be a huge benefit to your career. Loving to learn. Most newbie self-publishers don’t have a lot of funds to put toward book development and promotional…
Brought to you in affiliate partnership with Ultimate Bundles.
This post contains affiliate links. If you click on the links and shop any items Pharaoh Diaries Magazine gets a commission.
Can you actually make money as a writer?
Absolutely! With a little creativity, writers around the world make a living by doing what they love: That is, putting words down on paper. And the same is possible…
no no you guys don't get it. the x files cancer arc was, excuse the pun, a fucking white whale of a tv plotline that would not have worked nearly as well on literally any other show. it was a complete hail mary. the writers' room nearly didn't make it happen because they were worried it would fall too deeply into soap opera territory. and on any other show, it would! but the x files is about four key things: mistrust in the government, faith in both science and the otherworldly, building a life around trauma, and the fine line between love and codependency. it is the only show where the entirety of this situation- a government experiment on an unwilling young catholic leads to a terminal illness that is counteracted by a literal scientific miracle in the eleventh hour due to her partner's refusal to accept her impending death- could both happen at all and happen well. none of the themes in the cancer arc were new to txf at all. they'd all been lurking, to some extent, in the background since the pilot. the cancer arc wasn't merely milking a left-field catastrophe for the drama, it shoved the overarching themes of the show to the front and said look. look what these people are to each other. look how impossible it is to face the darkness alone. regardless of when the plotline was conceived, it was always going to happen. it was the only way the story could have ever gone. they were always doomed from the beginning
it's pretty wild to me that people don't see that aang running off to save katara in CoD is his luke in empire strikes back moment, where he runs headlong into his want and attachment and he's narratively punished for doing so and not learning his lesson - aang runs after katara despite guru pathik's warning, like luke runs after leia and han from yoda on dagobah despite yoda's warning; similarly, as a result, things go to hell in ba sing se like they do on bespin - aang enters the avatar state before he's ready and gets killed, and ba sing se falls to the fire nation, luke fights vader before he's ready, loses a hand, and symbolically commits suicide after vader tells him he's luke's father.
the difference between their character arcs is that george lucas and co. actually went thru with luke's hero's journey and understood the fundamental difference between attachment and love, whereas I don't think bryke understood this difference and then dropped this from aang's arc pretty much completely and replaced it with aang digging in his heels into his want and attachment and he gets rewarded with energy bending from a lion turtle, the avatar state from a random pointy rock, and his forever girl from the self-indulgent white men that couldn't bring themselves to give their hero a compelling character arc that meant he might not have gotten everything he wanted at the end.
god mcspirk is so terrific. i love when jim and spock scheme together (ok jim schemes but he ropes spock into it too and spock just can't say no to his captain) to fluster bones.
sometimes jim just wants to see his boyfriends make out with tongue... is that too much to ask?
prompt fill for @mcspirkevents' mcspirk bingo prompt "sloppy kissing" ←(>▽<)ノ
I finally finished reading the fourth volume of svsss in full, and thing is--the first time through I only read the bingqiu content because I was ravenous for more of their happy ending.
Turns out that was a perilous mistake.
Because I started reading the airplane extras. And I swear to god. MXTX is trying to kill me
What do you MEAN demon lord Binghe was sitting on his big fucking throne. All stoic and forbidding. Surrounded by his demon generals who don't know shit about human courtship. Asking them what he should do, fully demoralized by constant rejections from sqq, only to have airplane tell him to act more pathetic and needy. Which is already hysterically funny and insane, UNTIL LBH'S RESPONSE IS THIS, KILLING ME INSTANTLY:
LUO BINGHE. WHY DOES HE SAY IT LIKE: "I already tried that, didn't work--nothing works :/ not mean, not maidenly, not housewife, not spicy, not capable disciple. Is doubling down on clingy really all it will take? What's a born hater with only one love in his life to do????"
The dichotomy of him sitting there like 'how can I reach the unfathomable depths of shizun's heart?' A HEART HE'S ALREADY WON OVER, MIND and then in the Holy Mausoleum solving the puzzle without blinking and being like 'oh yeah you just have to hit the acupoints, no sweat.' Literally the comedy writes itself I'm so--
How am I supposed to be normal about this. MXTX understands the juicy quintessential queer joy of a person with the world's power at their fingertips wishing only for love. Willing to do anything to earn that love, when unbeknownst to them it's already been freely given. Totally not screaming and yelling and clawing at the walls
And that's not even touching airplane's uproarious account of events. The way he's like 'lol what's next, lbh and sqq are best friends now? smfh' only to see lbh TACKLE SQQ LOVINGLY. FOR SQQ TO BE BASHFUL ABOUT IT BUT SO SO FOND OF THE LITTLE SCAMP. This when we've been experiencing sqq's constant inner monologue of 'I'm so cool and so dignified about my role, truly the epitome of propriety and poser-level fortitude.' Meanwhile, in their universe:
Airplane constantly flaming???? Sqq and lbh in his observations????? His absolute bewilderment and confusion????? Legendary. No notes every single second of this shit was hilarious.
Airplane's comment that sqq + older adolescent lbh traveling together was just watching a couple in their honeymoon phase. OR the fact that lbh is exceedingly petty and refuses to share their food in the wake of airplane's interruption of their time together, until sqq relents sheepishly and insists airplane eat what's left (ONLY AFTER PLACATING LBH WITH MORE FOOD FROM HIS PLATE, SOBBING)
Watching airplane salivate over Mobei-Jun and acting like that's totally normal behavior. Finding out mbj and airplane got together first. Finding out sqq encouraged airplane. LIKE THIS. WHILE HE IS STILL IN DENIAL ABOUT HIS OWN FEELINGS:
Mobei-jun clearly thinking their arrangement is a forever thing, heartbroken his human abandoned him with all the hapless fury of a scorned wife swept away by false promises of fidelity. Airplane writing demons to be the type to beat up their crush lovingly and still unable to connect the dots about mbj's feelings. Mbj letting him go and respecting his wishes, only relenting when there's indication airplane was poorly processing his own feelings and didn't actually want to leave. Mbj caring for him and listening to him as soon as airplane voices what he needs directly and with clarity. None of these gays are functional and it's everything to me
Unrelated, but I physically can't hold this information in anymore:
I'm still reeling from younger lbh having his sexual awakening from the image of sqq wrapped in the immortal binding cables. Condemn me as you like he was so, so real for that.
And no I will not be taking any comments about how luo bingge couldn't bear to see luo binghe cherished in ways he never got to have and all the haunting implications of that. I will also not be taking any comments about luo binghe's instinct to look for sqq in that alternate universe, only to be shaken to the very core to be unable to find his shizun anywhere. The unspeakable and latent horror of his relentless mind likely piecing together what happened, but unable to say it; to suspect what is true, and live with the harrowing confusion of his double's actions. To blame himself, to assume that he had let his anger get the better of him in that world and result in unspeakable folly...
I also refuse to talk about how heartrending it is to hear Tianlang-jun weakly say "In the end, I really can't bring myself to hate humans." The implication that the foolishness of that hope and bright-eyed fondness--the very thing that put him through such unspeakable agony--couldn't be beaten out of him entirely. To discover that his faith in Su Xiyan hadn't been misplaced, to the contrary: his beloved hadn't scorned him at all, but rather fought to the miserable end to protect the fruition of their genuine feelings of love when she couldn't protect tlj or herself.
How MXTX has sqq deliberately draw parallels between their situation and that of ygy+sj and tlj+sx; desperately wishing it might not be too late for them. The concept of breaking cycles of abuse and harm pervasive throughout the newly devised story, how it evolves for the better only when love takes the place of power, pride, and domination. How the moment sqq chooses vulnerability instead of saving face, the genre shifts to the so-called "cringe" girly genre where most if not every character is more fulfilled, more true to themselves. How the "male-oriented" former genre was aimlessly sensationalized and sexualized, how it was a sustained performance of aspirational toxic masculinity. How men objectify other men without end. All of the unspoken gendered implications that come with that.
Anyways. Going to go put my head in a sandbox and try to process everything I just witnessed because even a second reading is not enough to find a modicum of closure.
11 takeaways to create a writing career from random and unpromising beginnings
On this blog I’ve interviewed many writers about how they made their writing career. I’ve never answered that question myself, but last month, I had this email:
I am a junior in high school. I am writing in the hope that you might help me with a school project. The objective is to find resumes for careers I want to pursue; I have always adored writing and it is what I want to make a living out…