The World of the Omniverse ranges over a multiverse populated with Elves, Pixies, Faeries, Dragons, Kobolds, Humans and other mythical creatures. At the center of the Omniverse looms the dark, mysterious presence of the Builders, creators of all. But most importantly, it has The Inn at the Crossroads, the mystical hub of the multiuniverse.
This is the series’ blog. Enjoy the posts.
No, I wont be going to the Festival of Writers in Rensselaerville this year. I am much too busy writing and working at the inn and our own workshops. Plus, there are no writing classes, only poetry classes. And even though I am a published poet and would love to take a workshop, I just don’t have the time. However, you should go. I highly recommend it. Enjoy. If you want to come to one of our art workshops, click here. Or if fiber art is your bag, click here.
My pet peeve, maybe even my biggest peeve, as a reader, writer, and especially as a linguist, is the improper use of the English informal. Just because “Wither goest thou?” is archaic, unless you are taking a poetry class in Scotland, in which case, everyone probably says it, does not make it formal. We English speakers have forgotten how to use the informal and when it is proper and improper to do so. (Take a German class or three or even a Spanish class, if you want to understand the nuances of informal speech.) Too often authors misuse the informal... Read More
We have just gotten back from a wonderful trip to Gateway Canyon resort where Kim took a quilting class and I rode horses, shot arrows and edited my books. I have started on book 5 of the Omniverse series and it’s a humdinger, provisional title The Witchery Diaries. Since all the books in the Omniverse series are journal entries from the innkeepers, past, present and future, including Elves, Humans, Dragons and the Hivemind, hair worms that turn people in zombies, it makes sense to get a witch’s perspective. In this book, Belle, Bill and Carey’s Pixie secretary and confident, has... Read More
I was a guest blogger on Girl EnTREEpreneur by Michelle Glover. (Click here to see the article.) I enjoyed working with Michelle on this challenging project. The biggest challenge for me was boiling down 35+ years as an entrepreneur into five hundred words. To meet this tight limit, I created five bullets that summed up my entrepreneurial philosophy. I then discussed using those five ideas as guidelines in your business life. Another challenge was freedom. It may seem like a strange thing to say but I am not used to having that much freedom when I write articles. Novels, yes.... Read More
The class I took with Sara J. Henry was very helpful. One of the products that came out of the class was this rewritten query, below, which I will be using from now on. With her help, I’ve also tightened up the chapter of The Inn of the Star Crossed. Thanks for all the help Sara. I am looking for an agent for The Inn of the Star Crossed, a 80,000 word Fantasy Adventure set in Civil War Manhattan. Bill and Carey’s mystical, magical inn is dissolving around them; a curse has turned them into a proper Victorian lady and gentleman.... Read More
Well, first of all, check your body wash. Is it Old Spice? No? Then maybe you should consider changing it. Do you write romances? Do you use Tag Body Spray? No? Maybe you should go out and buy some. OK. Ladened with products that make you smell good? Now your social media interactions will run more smoothly.You’ll be a hit with the girls or guys or both. Rewind. Let’s start again. What did you do? You wrote your first novel and sent queries to agents, publishers, boutique publishers, and now you’re piling up rejections. So, you decide to self-publish? Good... Read More
I work very hard on the writing, writing and rewriting and trying to weed out the lumber. — David McCullough I am editing The Timely Death of Maria del Pilar, a love story. I am deep in the edit of The Inn at Market Snodsbury (or The Bull and The Bush goes Bonkers.) And I have just reopened The Inn of the Star Crossed, which is at a publisher being considered. (I have heard from them and they are waiting for two more reviews to come in, we are down to the wire. Will they buy it or no?) Why... Read More
Please go to the Life By Chocolate blog (click here) for my latest posts. I’ve been busy. You can also go to Innsane (click here) for more posts.
The first and best place to go to find out what agents and publishers want in a query letter is on their webpage. All publishers will tell you their submission guidelines and many agents will augment that with what they want to see in a query. Every email I send to an agent or a publisher starts with a query. (Thank you, Ms. Faust for the great advice.) Even after they have requested my manuscript, I always send them a query beginning with the sentence, “Thank you for requesting the full manuscript of blahdiblah.” And then I launch into my... Read More
“The only end of writing is to enable the readers better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.” (Review of a Free Enquiry, 1757) One of my twitter pals, S. Luke Abaffy, turned me on to this wonderful article on Self-Publishing, click here. And another twitter pal, Christine Nolfi, posted this one: How to Publish and Profit. “No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.” (quoted by James Boswell in The Life of Samuel Johnson, 1791)
