#mainewriters

New Book Alert – SAINT – A YA paranormal

I have a new book! It’s about to come out! Big breaths. If you don’t remember, I’m doing this BIG EXPERIMENT where I’m independently publishing a book every month even though I’m terrible at pushing my own books and getting people to buy them. Yeah. That’s basically it. But I coach and edit so many writers who choose independent publishing over traditional publishing and I wanted to do a big…

Revision Tips! The Sexy Read-Through

This week, I’m posting a bit about revision! Yay! I also talked about it with my student-writers in The Writing Course of Awesome. Theater people know all about read-throughs. It’s when the whole cast sits down and reads the script. They get a cool feel of it and the characters and the plot. Well, a read-through is actually also an important second step in revising your novel. What’s the first…

TIPS ON SURVIVING BANNED BOOKS WEEK

I posted this back in 2006 when maybe fifteen people were reading my blog and I knew them all in person, I think. But I thought it might be good for this week, too.

The official Banned Books Week is Coming Up! Are you ready?

Sparty Dog Approves These Tips TIPS ON SURVIVING BANNED BOOKS WEEK

1. Remember, it’s okay to get ridiculously mad that people ban George by Alex Gino or Ca…

How Do You Defy Expectations

When my super cool daughter Em, was in sixth or seventh grade she was in the newspaper for doing this logrolling day with Timber Tina at the Great Maine Lumberjack Show.

This place is where she studied logrolling all summer and is where she battled seven boys, trying to knock them off logs by fancy footwork and all that. Timber Tina (she was on Survivor for one show and then went back for a…

Five Writing Quotes To Make You Feel Better About Things

Carrie is a bit burnt out this week so we decided to take a fast look at the advice and quotes that writers give to each other.

Quote #1

“The road to hell is paved with adverbs.” —Stephen King

Mr. King has strong feelings about adverbs. He has strong feelings about a lot of things. Just because a successful man has strong feelings about things doesn’t mean he’s correct.

Quote #2

“…

Random Thursday Things and What I am Up To - Podcasts, Nightmares, Pickles, Stories

So today is a bit of a random Thursday update. I hope you don’t mind.

I AM A GUEST ON A PODCAST THAT IS NOT MY PODCAST!

The lovely Sara Crawford has interviewed me for her podcast, Creative Expressions.

I talk about the second-grade haiku that changed my life, the importance of art, and other fun things about writing and painting and existing. Plus, Sara’s super cool so you should…

Broken Brains and Where Shouldn’t You Start Your Story

A lot of writing coaches talk about story structure and plots and inciting incidents, which is all well and good but Carrie is burnt-out this week. 

Carrie: I have worked too hard and my brain is broken. 

So, instead we are going to tell you what NOT to do. We are going to be the story police and harsh out the rules. 

Carrie: I don’t like rules or broken brains, but let’s do this.