Guest | Writing Forward

The Only Four Types Of Writing That Count (And How to Ace Each One)

Please welcome guest author Bryan Collins with a post exploring four types of writing. This post contains affiliate links that earn commissions for this website from qualifying purchases. This craft of ours is hard. You’ve got an idea, you’ve finished your research, and you know you’ve got something important to write about. There’s just one…Read More

Traditional Versus Digital: The Book Launch and the Aftermath

This post contains affiliate links that earn commissions for this website from qualifying purchases. Please welcome Warren Adler, author of The War of the Roses, with an article that compares print and digital book launches and examines the impact of traditional versus independent publishing on authors’ careers. The launch of a book, be it the…Read More

Take Your Writing Seriously

Please welcome guest author Jack Woodville London, author of A Novel Approach (To Writing Your First Book). “What I find hard about writing,” Nora Ephron said, “is the writing.” There’s a difference between writing and typing. Writers produce. Typists reproduce. Okay, that’s a bit harsh. Writers believe that a story worth telling is worth telling…Read More

Seven Ways Your Physical Environment Can Help or Hinder Your Writing

Please welcome guest author Ali Luke with a post on making adjustments to your physical environment to help your writing. Do you struggle to get into writing? Perhaps you sit down with your favorite notebook on a regular basis, but you never seem to get far. Your kids start arguing. Or you get a backache….Read More

3 Tips for April’s Poem-a-Day Challenge

April is National Poetry Month! Please welcome guest poet Bartholomew Barker with some tips on participating in Writer’s Digest’s Poem-a-Day Challenge. I agree with T. S. Eliot: “April is the cruelest month.” April is National Poetry Month. For the past seven years, Writer’s Digest editor Robert Lee Brewer has presented the April Poem-A-Day Challenge on…Read More

From Your Head to the Page: Six Techniques Professional Writers Use to Get Started

Please welcome guest author Dana Leipold with a post about getting started on a piece of writing. How many times have you gotten an idea for a book, but when you sat down to write it you froze or started playing Words with Friends instead? The hardest part of any writing endeavor is getting started….Read More

Finding Gold In Old Floppies: Books Coming Back From the Dead?

Please welcome guest author Tony Vanderwarker with a post on bringing old drafts back from the dead. One of the things you accumulate as you age is not just years, but places to stash your stuff. My wife and I have filing cabinets in the garage; stacks of plastic cases in the studio; and boxes…Read More

How to Practice Writing Every Day

Please welcome Sylvia Nankivell with a guest post on writing every day. As writers we often wait for that flash of inspiration before we grab a pen and wrestle with the paper in a flurry of blood, sweat and tears. This flash can come at any time: when waiting for a bus, while drinking your…Read More

Nailing Your Novel’s First Chapter

Please welcome guest author Ellen Brock with a post on writing a captivating first chapter for your novel. First chapters are important. Really important. If you’re submitting to agents and editors, your first chapter is not only their first impression of your work, but it’s often their only impression. This is a lot of pressure….Read More

The 5-Minute Guide to Spicing Up Your Prose With Foreign-Language Words

Please welcome author Carmen Amato with a guest post on using foreign-language words. “The chief virtue that language can have is clearness, and nothing detracts from it so much as the use of unfamiliar words.” – Hippocrates If your book is set in a non-English speaking location or your characters do not speak English, how…Read More