It is not unusual for a writer to have a pen name; Mark Twain, George Orwell, Lewis Carroll and many others adopted different names in their ordinary lives. The reasons for having a pen name can be different. Sometimes, if a writer creates something politically sensitive, the reason can be security. It also can because of genre change – a thriller writer suddenly decides to write romance and doesn’t want to disappoint her audience. Sometimes,
This morning I’ve reached for one of my old stories and brought it back to existence. The readers in Serbia have appreciated it and a literary magazine published it three years ago. My intention was to translate it and distribute it to my English-speaking audience. According to my recollection, it was a solid, creepy, dark story, and I was hungry to work on it. Once I opened it, I realized that it’s a tremendous pile
Just as it is essential to practice monotasking at your everyday routines, it is likewise significant to focus on a specific major project. During the last year I struggled to pull off many tasks, and I accomplished none. I’ve tried to: Complete my second novel. Marketing my first novel Build my website Translate my short story Write a blog Think of a non-fiction book Make a gift for my non-fiction readers The only thing that
Writers often brag with their refined vocabularies. Some of them swear that they never use a thesaurus or any alternative form of glossaries. According to some, applying these tools is a heresy and dishonor. Is applying tools, such as Grammarly or ProWritingAid unethical? Is it cheating or is it a clever exploit of tools and technology which can assist you to improve your writing? Yes, authors should use a reference book if they can’t pick
How often do you feel trapped and you wish to have more time to do the things you love? Perhaps you have a job, and you can’t wait for the weekend to come. Once the weekend is here, you are more relaxed and you know that you’ll have plenty of time for everything that you’ve planned to do. Two hours later, you catch yourself scrolling through your endless feeds and you feel guilty. Instead of
When it comes to planning and organizing there are two groups of people. The ‘Executioners’ and the ‘Tomorrowers’. They both plan their work but there is a slight difference between their outcome. Executioners make plans for today and execute them. The following day, they make a new plan, which they execute again. ‘Tomorrowers’ make plans and instead of executing them, they make a new, better, plan for tomorrow. When tomorrow comes, they make a better
Writing is a portable business. No matter what your writing device is, you can carry it with you, and when you feel the urge to write you can simply sit down and write or if you prefer, you can do it while standing up. With that in mind, I wonder; does a writer need an office or is it a waste of space and money? During my entire life, I didn’t have much space and
If you’re any serious about your writing career, you must have an author platform. Basically, it is a website where readers can find out different information about you, buy your books and stay in touch with you. You must know that you need to build your author platform even before you’ve written your first book. Whether you plan to go traditionally or self-published you need to let the readers know that you exist. According to
Occasionally, you will have one of these days. The days when everything seems like homework; you know that you will benefit you if you do certain things but you’d rather do something else instead. It takes a lot of willpower to write on these days. The days when everyone else is doing better. Everybody has a bigger audience, sells more books, writes better books and better articles. You simply look at everyone from a pit.
Blogging is something I enjoy doing really much. I’ve written more than 100 posts in the last 6 months or so but now it’s time to level up. I want my blog to have a purpose, to add value and to help me to connect me with my readers. Since I’ve started this blog I mainly wrote about writing because that’s what we, authors love doing; blabbering about writing. While that’s interesting to us, I