Friday Kiss - Feelings

 

Friday Kiss - Balance

From work-in-progress, Welcome to Sullivan Street, edited to fit Twitter's character limit.

Grabbing a handful of the stupid plastic strips, I give them a really hard tug.

The nail gives.

I lose my balance, and gravity snatches at me.

My downwards trajectory is stopped by a pair of strong arms. I squeak and throw my arms around my saviour’s neck.

Growing your writing

This month's WriYe topic is writing books, courses, and websites that I recommend. I have done/read all the things listed but obviously YMMV in terms of how useful they are for you. I am not being compensated for any link listed.

Courses

Novel-gazing with Julie Cohen has two courses available - Using Post-Its to Transform Your Writing, and Creating a Character in Seven Easy Steps - and she offers a discount if you buy both. Julie is a great tutor and her courses come from her own extensive writing career.

Heartbreathings is run by Sarra Cannon, a prolific YA author. She offers her HB90 course every quarter and her Publish & Thrive course once or twice a year. I recommend the HB90 course for every writer, but the P&T is aimed more at self-publishing/hybrid authors.

The RNA offer courses for both members and non-members (you'll pay more as a non-member.) So far this year, they've covered plotting, creating character conflict, and the business side of things such as handling contracts and intellectual property.

Books

While I've a bookshelf full of writing books, there are some I dip into so regularly that they have a spot on my desk. These are:

• Save the Cat Writes a Novel, by Jessica Brody
• Romancing the Beat, by Gwen Hayes
• Take Off Your Pants, by Libby Hawker

Websites

WriYe is a writing community that runs all year (hence the name!) It runs monthly and mini challenges, and has a Discord where you can chat to other writers.

4thewords is an online writing game that uses the words you write to fight monsters and finish quests. . Ideal for writers who are driven by rewards, it's also great to make - and maintain - a consistent writing habit.

Other

If you have Twitter, do follow Joanne Harris, who frequently posts "10 things about" threads.

Both Cat Rambo and Charlie Knight have a Patreons where they share posts about the writing process. Again, they're on Twitter and well worth a follow.

If you're writing genre fiction, then there's SFWA for sci fi and fantasy, and RNA for romance (I do not recommend RWA due to insistances of bigotry.)

Booked on a Feeling by Jayci Lee

This is a sweet book with characters to love and descriptions of food to make you salivate. I really wanted to give it five stars, but there were a couple of issues. It did, apparently, have an editor. It's... not noticeable.

There are passages of head-hopping that I had to read over to get the gist, which pulled me out of the story. POV changed between scenes, giving me literary whiplash. And there were mistypes (him instead of her is the stand-out instance)

It's such a shame, because other than these problems, it's a lovely book. It deserved more time being polished.

Friday Kiss - Stars

#FridayKiss is a hashtag for romance writers to share a line from their work - either finished or in progress. Each week has a theme and snippets should either contain the word or be inspired by it.

This week I'm again sharing from my wip TURN ON THE STARS, and I've skipped ahead to where Richard is showing Martine his, um, equipment.

Her irritation lasts until he’s positioned her behind the telescope and run through the basics, because once she sees the sparkling ribbon of the Milky Way, all she can feel is wonder.

Be sure to tune in next week for another installment!