Category: 4theWriters

Choosing Your Cover Artist

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Authors-only post follows, but y’all may like it anyway. Many cover artists are good, but the crucial thing I’ve found is how well they gel with you. Choosing your preferred artist should be one of your principle business relationships. It’s all about the fit, and I’ve developed a set of five criteria for assessing this relationship that should save you time and money. I had an opportunity to give my covert artist a testimonial for her site today, and it got me thinking: how should authors choose a cover artist? You might think it’s an easy decision to grab an artist from the web, maybe hunt around by price, and viola! Job done. If your goal is to not sell books, that’s a great approach. If you want to get your stories into readers hands, you need to refine a Read More …

Scapple: Meet Boundless

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I’ve been doing a chunk o’ worldbuilding and plotting for the revised Boundless. While my World Anvil is pretty sparse (spoilers, people), my internal notes are growing. Yesterday, I dug up this super-old relationship wireframe: Dug up this super-old relationships concept (this is like 0.1 ALPHA, and there's 600 others, with far more detail) for Boundless. It's funny how some of these stick with me and others are dead and buried. #WritingCommunity #indieauthors #amwriting #amworldbuilding pic.twitter.com/Ifa3XhLGu7 — Richard Parry 👾 (@ParryForte) April 10, 2019 I figured you might get a kick out of seeing what the current story scaffold looks like. I’m a mix of outlining and discovery writing; I like to have an end state in mind, but freestyle the rest of it. The approach gives a structured tale while letting the characters tell their own part of it Read More …

Is Writing Everyday Really Necessary?

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I see this one a lot. Is writing everyday really necessary? from writing The short version is no, and the longer verison is that it might be harmful to your creativity, depending on how your brain works. Let’s get into this. The prevailing advice from the world is, “Yo, you should write every day. Every! Day! And twice on Sundays.” I’m not 100% sure where this craziness comes from, but it could be misguided thinking around the power of habituated behaviours. Habits can be good! Humans love habits. Making and breaking them takes effort, and while a crack cocaine habit is most likely bad, a fitness habit is probably good. You’ll have heard how habits take 21 days to form, and while it’s a little more complicated than that, doing something often, perhaps on a schedule, can be good for Read More …