Formatting a screenplay is A LOT of work. Theoretically, I suppose you could do it in a word processor, but it would take ten times as long and drive you crazy. That means screenwriters rely on software to do the heavy lifting so we can focus our energy on the important parts (you know, character…
To begin, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Dani Alcorn for inviting me to write a guest blog post for Writing Academy. My debut children’s picture book, Nobody Loves Mustard, unexpectedly became: An Amazon Best Selling New Release A Number 1 Best Seller (Top 100 Free) A Number 1 Best Seller (Top…
Today let’s talk about how to make sure subjects and verbs agree when a word like “or” comes into play. There can be more to this than meets the eye. This grammar game begins with a few terms to help you keep the rules in hand. The subject is the person, thing, or idea directing…
Myself. Yourself. Herself. Himself. Itself. Ourselves. Themselves. Yourselves. What are these words and how do we use them? They’re pronouns. (Quick refresher: Pronouns step in for nouns. They save us lots of boring repetition.) “Mrs. Smith baked a pie, and she shared it with her first grade class.” Without pronouns, look what happens to this…
If you do a search for “most common grammar errors,” the affect/effect duo is going to turn up. These two words are homophones. That means they sound alike. Well, they’re almost homophones; though not identical, they sound very much alike. We can see the difference in their spellings, but we don’t always hear it when…
You need an email list of potential customers to market your book(s) to. Surprised? You probably assumed email lists were just for businesses. But you are a business now! (PS That’s true even if you’re planning to go the traditional publishing route – agents and publishers will be very interested in you if you already…
Getting your book blurbed by the right person can have a huge impact on the success of your book launch. The right blurb can increase your sales and go a long way toward legitimizing a self-published book. But, first, what is a book blurb? A book blurb is a short quote (usually just one or…