Tuesday Tutorial: SEO Plug-Ins

Google Search for Evil Mastermind
Be Evil, and Be Seen!

You don’t have to be an Evil Mastermind to take advantage of Search Engine Optimization tools (SEO) for your blog. In fact, you don’t have to be a mastermind at all.

While this tutorial targets WordPress blogs, the same philosophies apply to tagging and SEO for all blogs. How do I know this, you ask? As much as I hate to admit it, it’s because back in my previous life, I worked as Director of Operations for a Search Engine Positioning company in Boston. Continue reading “Tuesday Tutorial: SEO Plug-Ins”

On Murdering Your Darlings

Editing process underway?

We writers are known for killing off characters in creative ways. Wood chippers are a favorite method. (Oh, I’m the only one who does that? Uh…never mind. I’ll just…move that thing back into the garage.) Yet the writing adage “murder your darlings” did not originally refer to killing characters but cutting out unnecessary words. While William Faulkner and Elmore Leonard have been credited with it, the original quote is attributed to Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, who wrote:

“Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it—whole-heartedly—and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.”
Continue reading “On Murdering Your Darlings”

Sneak Peek: Screaming Snowflakes by Amber Tesia

Today, we feature a sneak peek of Amber Tesia’s Screaming Snowflakes.

Eleanor is the antithesis of the rebellious Raphael, whose damned and tainted soul threatens her very existence. Unseen supernatural forces conspire to keep the lovers apart, yet nothing can harm Eleanor as she remains under Raphael’s protection.

With an unprecedented alliance between a human and the epitome of darkness can a pure, forbidden love conquer all?

As the boundaries of good and evil become blurred and transgression becomes inevitable, this gripping, thought provoking tale will engage all who have ever questioned love and humanity.

This title is available from Amazon US and Amazon UK. Learn more about author Amber Tesia at her website and follow her on Twitter.

Continue reading “Sneak Peek: Screaming Snowflakes by Amber Tesia“

What To Eat in Bargia

Food has been on the brains of many of us lately. Apparently that means writing has taken a back seat. So just to make sure the rest of you don’t get back to business before I do and jump ahead of me here is a post I wrote for Shelley Workinger’s blog (with minor edits). Drool on.

WHAT TO EAT IN BARGIA:

My trilogy, Earth’s Pendulum, takes place in an imaginary old world society. Think agrarian city state, on a large island isolated from other influences. The climate is temperate, akin to what Ireland might have, or England.

Now when I create my world, while it is not a real place, I still want my readers to be able to place themselves there, to see it in their minds, to hear the speech of the characters. Both the setting and the characters must be believable. Continue reading “What To Eat in Bargia”