Lorna Faith

Clean Fiction Author

059 Re-Ignite Your Writing Dreams and Goals for 2018!

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In this podcast episode, I share some tips and thoughts on how you can inspire your writing goals and dreams for 2018.

It’s something that I’ve needed to do in my own writing journey, and so I thought it would be helpful to share what has inspired me and what I’ve learned. Maybe one or two of these ideas will help you move forward to take massive action toward your own writing dreams in the New Year.

If one of your goals for 2018 is to Finish Your Book, then please feel free to join the free Facebook Group where I’ll be doing a weekly live video(with a replay) to help writers Finish their books. Click here to join the Finish Your Book Facebook Group 😉

 

 

I hope this podcast episode inspired you to set your 5 Big Moves to reach your writing dreams and goals.

 

What are your writing dreams and goals for 2018?  Please do share in the comments below 🙂

058 Write Memorable Characters Using Tick Tock Character-OZ-Ation with Jacqueline Garlick

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In this conversation with bestselling indie/hybrid author Jacqueline Garlick, she shares how she has learned to write compelling characters using her Tick Tock Character-OZ-Ation technique based on the memorable characters in the story of The Wizard of Oz.

In this interview, she shares her journey as an indie author and how her first two books, in the  immensely popular young adult steampunk fantasy series The Illumination Paradox, got picked up by Amazon’s imprint Skyscape.

In the intro, I share helpful leadership and writing tips I’ve learned during December from Michelle Spiva’s  Leader of One project. She shares on how to clarify, simplify, and how to lead yourself from frustration as you write and self-publish, to learning to commit to a daily writing practice. It’s been super helpful!

I also share useful writing books I’ve been reading and rereading – like Jacqueline Garlick’s nonfiction books for writers and Joanna Penn’s The Successful Author Mindset.

Watch the Video Interview

Jacqueline Garlick, talks about how she was addicted to writing even from a young age. She wrote stories and also did artwork. However, her well meaning parents wanted to her to focus on doing something that would lead to a secure job, instead of focussing on writing and art.

So, she got degrees she disliked and began teaching. Her aha moment of inspiration came when she saw a High School friend’s book in the Indigo bookstore. It lit a fire in Jacqueline to get back to writing again.

Jacqueline tells how she met Ellen Hopkins at her 1st writing conference and later was invited to a year mentorship program. This is where she learned a ton about fiction writing.

It was a few years later that she decided to write and self-publish a YA Fantasy series, that she was passionate about writing and it was this series – The Illumination Paradox – that was later picked up by Amazon’s imprint Skyscape.

Jacqueline’s tips on growing as an Indie Author:

1.Continue learning from others in the Indie Author community and from other writers and self-published authors in your chosen genre.

2.Be willing to try new ideas and experiment writing in different genres.

3.Self-publishing is about being an innovator and understanding consumers and why people buy. Begin to ask yourself why you buy books or other thing. What sparks your enthusiasm to buy. Make your own author marketing plan so that it’s appealing and something that no one has seen before.

4.Write your first draft quickly. You can always fix it later.

On Developing Memorable Characters…

Jacqueline has written a series of nonfiction books to help writers. Her most recent book, Tick Tock Character-OZ-Ation: Character Development 101, is what we talked about in this interview:

1.Ask questions of your character. What is their wound? What in their past has made them what they are now?(both good and bad qualities). Why are they acting this way? Whatis the root cause of why they’re upset, etc.

2.Look for  Wizard of Oz type characters in most stories. Dorothy(character who viewed herself as not enough and longed to be loved and to believe she was enough on her own); Lion(character that doesn’t have courage); Tin Man(character that doesn’t have a heart); Scarecrow(character that doesn’t have brains).

 

3 Pieces of advice for first-time writers:

Jacqueline shared her top 3 pieces of advice for writers who are just beginning the indie author journey.

1.You’re only as good as your editor. If your book isn’t edited well, you’ll get attacked in reviews by 1 stars and even the very best story won’t be read.

2.Decide what kind of writer you want to be. Know what stories you are passionate about writing and what you don’t want to write.

3.If you begin to intentionally learn how to market your books it will be a massive help to your books selling well.

 

To connect with Jacqueline, visit her author website or chat with her on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.

057 Write Four Books A Year As A Juggling Author With Jim Heskett

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If you are working a day job, have a family and are wondering how you can find any extra time to write, you’ll find this interview with bestselling author Jim Heskett super helpful 😉

Jim shares how he squeezes in time to write while having a day job a wife and a toddler. Tune in, to learn his tips on how to be productive…

In the intro, I share what I’ve learned from an inspiring blogpost by Nina Amir this week on how to prepare yourself for opportunity. There are also some very useful books/resources that you might find helpful in your author journey: 1)Learn how to get unstuck and be a productive writer in Jim Heskett’s book for writers, The Juggling Author: How to Write Four Books A Year While Balancing Family, Friends and a Full-Time Job. 2) A really helpful book to help you map out your novel, that I’ve been re-reading is The Plot Whisperer by Martha Alderson.

Watch the Video Interview

Jim Heskett was born in the wilds of Oklahoma, raised by a pack of wolves with a station wagon and a membership card to the local public swimming pool. Just like the man in the John Denver song, he moved to Colorado in the summer of his 27th year, and never looked back. Aside from an extended break traveling the world, he hasn’t let the Flatirons mountains out of his sight.

Interview Highlights:

Writing tips for the Pre-Production process:

1.Keep a notebook of ideas.

2.When you’re ready to write your first draft, take an idea from the notebook and come up with a synopsis.

3.Next, figure out who the good guy and bad guy is. And write details about those characters. That’s a good jumpstart to brainstorming story ideas.

Secrets to Writing your First Draft :

1.Write fast and short. In this interview, Jim says that’s 90% of the keys to his success. He encourages writers to leave out some of the dialogue and flowery descriptions in the first draft and just write the spine of the story.

2.Focus only on writing and finishing the first draft. Get it out and onto the blank page as fast as you can.

3.Set and keep self-imposed deadlines. Adding deadlines can really help you get things done in a good amount of time.

Beta Readers and Self-Editing Tips:

1.Consider writing a second and third draft before you send your manuscript to the editor, so that you can send her/him as clean a manuscript as possible.

2.Ask for Beta readers after you’ve finished the 2nd draft. Jim encourages writers to meet their Beta readers on Facebook or Goodreads and get to know them. But, careful that you give your manuscript to someone you trust.

3.Read through the constructive criticism from Beta readers and if more than one person points out the same thing, then take a look at it.

 

Helpful Tools and Resources:

1.Pro-Writing Aid and/or Grammarly to check for errors in your manuscript.

2.Stephen King’s Book: On Writing.

3.Goal Tracker App called GoalStreaks to help you manage your to-do list.

Jim encourages writers to do something everyday to move your author career forward: writing, self-editing, writing emails to your mailing list, scheduling a promotion, etc. He then uses the GoalStreaks app to string days together to make a chain of ‘X’s for everyday that he checks off items on that list. As of this writing, Jim now has 4 1/2 years under his belt and is still going strong.

Tips on staying motivated to reach your goals…

Do you best, not to compare yourself with other writers. If you do, it’s too easy to get discouraged and want to give up.

Instead compare yourself to where you came from.

Hold onto the feeling you had when you reached certain milestones:

The first time you had a review from someone you didn’t know.

The first time you held a paperback of one of your books in your hands.

The first time someone paid good money for one of your books.

“Remembering important milestones will help keep you motivated and inspired to keep writing. Get that next book out. Take that next step. Do a little better today than you did yesterday. Most of all, keep writing.” Jim Heskett

Connect with Jim at his fiction website or at his nonfiction website for writers here. You can also chat with Jim on Facebook or Twitter.

 

How do you find time to write, while juggling family, friends and a job? Please, do share your thoughts in the comments 🙂

How to Setup a Self-Hosted WordPress Author Website (Step-by-Step Video Tutorial)

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Now is an amazing time to start your author website.

However, it’s also an incredible time to start your author blog because websites are viewed by an audience of over 400 million people each month –this a huge opportunity to get your story or message out into the world.

Isn’t that incredible? That’s an amazing opportunity to reach more people with your writing and your books. Question is: are you taking advantage of it? 

Right now it’s never been easier to connect with an audience and reach more readers… but are you starting the conversation?

We all have something to say… especially writers. Blogs not only make that possible, they make it easy. It’s time to get started and figure out what it takes to reach more readers and get your stories spread to a wider audience.

An opportunity you don’t want to miss…

What happens if you don’t do this? You stay invisible and your message doesn’t reach your readers.

Personally, for years I dreamed of having a website I could have control over. But when I first started writing and blogging, I got overwhelmed by ‘technical – knowhow'(or in my case, the lack thereof;). So I froze up, procrastinated and eventually I gave up.

But I’ve finally found a simple way to setup a self-hosted blog that sounds techy, but is in fact super easy to do. In this video tutorial, I’m going to show you the step-by-step process on how you can set up your first author website too.

Setup your self-hosted author website(video tutorial)

In this 30 minute video I share what I wish someone would have told me years ago.  It would have seriously shortened the time I wasted trying first one thing and then the other…  oy the pain and struggle ;(

In this tutorial, I share my affiliate link to Bluehost, a company I highly recommend that makes the whole process very easy. If you click the link I get a commission at no extra cost to you. Please know I only recommend products I use and love, and offering affiliate links is one way I am able to keep this blog going.

My hope, is that this video tutorial helps shorten the time it takes for you to setup your author website and reach readers for your books.

In this Video Tutorial I share simple steps on how to:

  • get a domain name and hosting plan
  • install WordPress
  • choose and install a WordPress theme and how to customize your theme so you get the colours, text and menu items you want
  • add a page on your new website to feature your books
  • add plugin(s) to: protect your website; contact form for readers to message you; add SumoMe for social sharing; add Author WIP progress bar to let readers know how far along you are in writing your next book, etc.
  • setup your first MailChimp email account(free for the first 2000 subscribers to your email list) and add that signup page to your WordPress website.

Thats it. Now your author website is setup. 

Now you can begin blogging and sharing your books. This is where the fun, and good hard work of writing begins.

If you’re ready to jump in, click the image below to get started with Bluehost.

For more on how to get started, check out: 9 Simple Steps to Start a Self-Hosted WordPress Website in Less Than 15 Minutes. 

If you’re ready to setup your author website with BlueHost, you can use my affiliate link to get a little extra off the normal price. They’re a top recommended host by WordPress and have wonderful customer service. I’ve worked with them for a couple of years already and I’ve been very happy with their service.

If you want to share this blogpost and video tutorial with someone, please do. Feel free to link to this post or embed the video on your website. You can find the screencast on YouTube.

 

Do you have your own self-hosted website? If you do, what do you love about it? If not, what questions do you have? Please do share your thoughts in the comments below ?

 

 

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