dawn.vogel | July 8, 2024
Another panel I was on at the WriteHive Online Conference was Historians on History. With a couple of other historians, archivists, and writers of historical fiction, we talked about doing research for our historical stories and how to avoid certain pitfalls of research rabbit holes (not always successful) and how to deal with difficult history […]
dawn.vogel | July 1, 2024
Many writers who are not perfectionists in other aspects of their life suddenly seem to develop this trait when faced with an imperfect draft. They become certain that if their first draft isn’t beautiful, it’s not worth calling it finished, and they tinker with it ceaselessly. I’m here to say: let it go. Your first […]
dawn.vogel | June 24, 2024
While talking about books and authors with my mother-in-law a couple of weeks ago, she realized she had read two of the books by a best-selling author we know, but she’d missed that there was a third book. I showed her the cover for the third book, to see if she recognized it (since she’d […]
dawn.vogel | June 18, 2024
I’ve spent a lot of time preparing to publish An (Un)helpful Guide to Writing a Novel, my non-fiction, tongue-in-cheek, guide for aspiring novel writers. In large part, some of the humor in this book is the fact that I do not enjoy writing novels, but I’ve got advice to share about the process. The other part […]
dawn.vogel | June 17, 2024
During the WriteHive Online Conference this a couple of weekends ago, I was one of the panelists for “Making Each Word Count: A Short Story Master Class.” We had a great conversation about writing and publishing short fiction, from our individual perspectives and offering advice to authors who are interested in that length. The other […]
dawn.vogel | June 10, 2024
Last week, I talked about writing concisely, which is something I’m pretty good at. This week, I’m talking about the flipside of that, which is also one of my weaknesses as a writer–filling in the details. When I sit down to write, I generally picture the scene I’m writing as I go. In addition to […]
dawn.vogel | May 13, 2024
I’ve mentioned The Anti-Planner before, but I just found out it’s now available on Amazon! This is a fantastic book for people who deal with procrastination and executive disfunction and other forms of “don’t wanna.” You use the book to identify what sort of “don’t wanna” you’re dealing with, and then find options based on what’s […]
dawn.vogel | May 6, 2024
I recently came across Marie Vibbert’s post about her self promotion and social media strategies recently, which she concludes by looking at the impact (or lack thereof) on sales. It’s a great read, and her results fly against some of the common wisdom dispensed to authors. This is not to say that you should delete […]
dawn.vogel | April 29, 2024
Before There Were Stars is a little different from most of the card-based writing tools I use. It’s designed to be a storytelling game rather than writing prompts, but the way the game is set up, it works well as both! In the game, you tell mythic stories about a fictional group of people, based […]
dawn.vogel | April 8, 2024
If you’re looking for some helpful advice for speculative fiction writers, check out this article with some great suggestions about how you might refresh your speculative fiction writing! I think the advice presented here is useful for all levels of speculative fiction writers, whether you’re just getting started or whether you want to try something […]
