A Writers Guide To Persistence

Practice. Polish. Persist. Your writing journey can take you many places: hiking through steep mountains, traversing unknown territory, hurdling both roadblocks and rejections. Even the siren song of fame and fortune can distract you from your true purpose: to express yourself in an authentic and meaningful way, and to share your words with others. A Writer's Guide to Persistence is your road map through the rugged terrain of the writer's path. You'll discover advice and techniques for cultivating a fruitful, deeply meaningful writing life by practicing your craft, polishing your work, and persisting through even the toughest challenges. Inside you'll find: • Practical ways to balance writing with the rest of your life: taming your busy schedule, increasing your productivity, and committing to a writing practice • Advice for developing authentic work: finding your voice, writing bravely, and breaking the blocks to creative flow • Methods for stretching your skills through craft and revision • Thoughts on pushing through rejection and doubt, submitting strong, nourishing yourself to avoid burnout, and keeping your mind and body fit Filled with journaling exercises and much-needed motivation, as well as insights from best-selling writers in a variety of genres, A Writer's Guide to Persistence will help you find the joy and purpose inherent in a writer's life. Your journey to publication and success may take a lifetime, but you can sow the rewards of writing with every step. "A compassionate and intelligent guide for any writer who's just starting out or one who needs the understanding and encouragement of a great writing coach. Rosenfeld offers practical solutions for every concern, from how to find the time to write to getting through writer's block." --Patricia V. Davis, best-selling author

Practice. Polish. Persist. Your writing journey can take you many places: hiking through steep mountains, traversing unknown territory, hurdling both roadblocks and rejections. Even the siren song of fame and fortune can distract you from your true purpose: to express yourself in an authentic and meaningful way, and to share your words with others. A Writer's Guide to Persistence is your road map through the rugged terrain of the writer's path. You'll discover advice and techniques for cultivating a fruitful, deeply meaningful writing life by practicing your craft, polishing your work, and persisting through even the toughest challenges. Inside you'll find: • Practical ways to balance writing with the rest of your life: taming your busy schedule, increasing your productivity, and committing to a writing practice • Advice for developing authentic work: finding your voice, writing bravely, and breaking the blocks to creative flow • Methods for stretching your skills through craft and revision • Thoughts on pushing through rejection and doubt, submitting strong, nourishing yourself to avoid burnout, and keeping your mind and body fit Filled with journaling exercises and much-needed motivation, as well as insights from best-selling writers in a variety of genres, A Writer's Guide to Persistence will help you find the joy and purpose inherent in a writer's life. Your journey to publication and success may take a lifetime, but you can sow the rewards of writing with every step. "A compassionate and intelligent guide for any writer who's just starting out or one who needs the understanding and encouragement of a great writing coach. Rosenfeld offers practical solutions for every concern, from how to find the time to write to getting through writer's block." --Patricia V. Davis, best-selling author

Lambda Literary Award finalist American Library Association Stonewall Honor Book In the summer of 2009, butch writer and storyteller Ivan Coyote and gender researcher and femme dynamo Zena Sharman wrote down a wish-list of their favourite queer authors; they wanted to continue and expand the butch-femme conversation. The result is Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme. The stories in these pages resist simple definitions. The people in these stories defy reductive stereotypes and inflexible categories. The pages in this book describe the lives of an incredible diversity of people whose hearts also pounded for some reason the first time they read or heard the words "butch" or "femme." Contributors such as Jewelle Gomez (The Gilda Stories), Thea Hillman (Intersex), S. Bear Bergman (Butch is a Noun), Chandra Mayor (All the Pretty Girls), Amber Dawn (Sub Rosa), Anna Camilleri (Brazen Femme), Debra Anderson (Code White), Anne Fleming (Anomaly), Michael V. Smith (Cumberland), and Zoe Whittall (Bottle Rocket Hearts) explore the parameters, history, and power of a multitude of butch and femme realities. It's a raucous, insightful, sexy, and sometimes dangerous look at what the words butch and femme can mean in today’s ever-shifting gender landscape, with one eye on the past and the other on what is to come. Includes a foreword by Joan Nestle, renowned femme author and editor of The Persistent Desire: A Femme-Butch Reader, a landmark anthology originally published in 1992. Ivan E. Coyote is the author of seven books (including the novel Bow Grip, an American Library Association Stonewall Honor Book) and a long-time muser on the trappings of the two-party gender system. Zena Sharman is the assistant director of Canada's national Institute of Gender and Health.

Take a Deep Dive into Plot and Scene and Improve Your Writing Whether you're planning your first novel or have already written a first draft, you need to master the concepts of plot and scene to truly realize your story's potential. Writing Deep Scenes teaches you how to write strong, layered, and engaging scenes--the secret to memorable, page-turning plots. It's filled with practical tools for building layers and nuance into your scenes, employing the right scene types at the right junctures, and developing a profound understanding of how plot and scene intertwine. Inside you'll learn: • How scenes are comprised of three key layers: action, emotion, and theme. • How to recognize each layer and weave them seamlessly into a scene. • How to develop an intricate relationship between the action and emotion in every scene. • How thematic imagery embedded in scenes increases a story's tension and contributes to the story's meaning. Using contemporary examples from a variety of genres, Writing Deep Scenes provides an effective method for plotting at the scene level. Use these techniques and enrich your fiction and memoirs with page-turning suspense and pathos, and explore new depths in every story you write.

QUITLESS is not just another anthology encouraging you to "mush on" in the face of hardship or to "manifest your dreams." It is an honest, thoughtful look at the mental fortitude and dexterity it takes to own the title of tomorrow’s great entrepreneur. HELICOPTER CRASHES, CORPORATE LAYOFFS, AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN: UNDERSTANDING THE MINDSET OF THE UNSHAKEABLE! Every single day there is an entrepreneur that comes to life for the first time – and every single day there is another, who is giving up on their dreams. Eleven letters. That’s all that separates them. Why are some catapulted to great professional heights, where others fail? Persistence. QUITLESS is a comprehensive anthology of some of the most successful, die-hard, and tirelessly working entrepreneurs in the world. Together they weave a compelling narrative about the cruciality of learning to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get back in the game. Direct from the source, learn the art of responding purposefully, deliberately and pragmatically to the myriad obstacles standing between you and your own personal success story. Start reading now to: Learn specific tactics and strategies for perseverance in the face of overwhelming odds Develop a mindset that welcomes challenges and adversity via cognitive programming Explore the value and usefulness of failure in developing resilience and new points of view Understand the paramount importance of orienting yourself in the right direction before you unleash your will power Set yourself apart as a forward-thinking leader of tomorrow’s professional landscape Save time, energy and fiscal resources by consistently checking in with your personal and professional “Why?” Understand how blind persistence can actually be a massive impediment to your own success Learn about how some of the greatest in the game, almost never were Whether you’re an artist, a teacher, a programmer or an entrepreneur - come one, come all! Set yourself up for continued success by conditioning your mind to adapt, overcome and thrive! The life you’ve always dreamed of living is right here, on the other side of fear - grab your copy of QUITLESS today!

Infuse Your Fiction with the Powerful Tug of Tension! Tension is the heart of conflict, the backbone of uncertainty, the hallmark of danger. It keeps readers guessing and characters on their toes. When you've got tension in place, stories leave readers breathless and wanting more. When it's missing, scenes feel inconsequential, plots drag, and characters meander. Learning the craft of writing can sometimes feel like a paint by numbers approach--connect compelling character A to plot event B. To avoid writing that's formulaic, predictable, and slow, How to Write a Page Turner will help you sew the threads of tension tight for an unforgettable story. You'll learn how to: • Recognize the essential tension elements of danger, conflict, uncertainty, and withholding, and add them to your fiction • Create levels of tension in your characters through flaws, dialogue, power struggles, and more • Build tension at energetic markers throughout the plot • Use intimate imagery, strong sentences, and well-chosen words to build tension in exposition While this book walks you through the key areas that need tension building, from character to plot, it also delves deeper, analyzing exceptional examples from contemporary fiction's most gripping page-turners. So as you dive into the inner conflicts of a character's deepest psyche, to the mechanics of how you reveal information to the reader, you'll also discover how to craft a story your readers can't put down!

Craft Vibrant Characters and an Intimate Reading Experience The key to excellent fiction lies in its characters: the unforgettable protagonists, antagonists, and secondary characters who populate the world of your story. Understanding and effectively using point of view allows you to write a powerful narrative that draws readers in and engages them with characters in a meaningful way. Through a blend of practical instruction, useful examples, and helpful exercises, Writing the Intimate Character shows you how to create the experience of living through a character rather than just reading about one. Inside, you'll learn: • The functions and benefits of first-person, third-person intimate, omniscient, and second-person points of view. • How to apply character cues--specific behaviors, sensory perceptions, dialogue, and visual imagery--to develop a realistic protagonist and secondary cast. • The surface and subset feelings that get to the root of your character’s emotions. • How different viewpoints affect the story you want to tell. Writing the Intimate Character helps you craft a novel in which readers can experience your characters' senses, dive inside their minds, and truly feel their emotions. "Writing the Intimate Character, the latest engaging guide by Jordan Rosenfeld, is a rich resource we'll all be learning from for the rest of our lives. 'Does the term point of view seem too dull and dry?' she asks. 'Try intimacy instead.' And then she shows us how, with diverse examples and wise observation. Now that I have Jordan's take on how to create a character from the inside out, I'm eager to get to it. You, too, will find this book that inspiring." --Rebecca Lawton, author of Sacrament: Homage to a River and other books "Writing the Intimate Character provides insights, examples, and exercises that will be useful not only to those who are new to writing fiction but to those, like myself, who are coming back to it after a break. Jordan Rosenfeld's explanation of how narrative voice works with point of view and other literary elements to create characters that readers care deeply about is clear and revelatory. The book can be worked through methodically or dipped into as needed. It's a useful tool for getting the gears of imagination working or for jump-starting and fine-tuning a work in process." --Zoe Zolbrod, author of the novel Currency and the memoir The Telling "Jordan Rosenfeld has a keen insight into how to construct characters who are truly lived-in. With intelligence and wit, she walks you through every element of powerful characterization, from selecting your POV to demonstrating character growth throughout your story. Whether you're new to fiction or a more experienced writer, put your trust in Jordan Rosenfeld; she'll help you tell a better story." --Laura Bogart, freelance writer and novelist

Set in Pakistan, this is the story of a teen girl living with her mother and siblings in a diplomatic compound. As if getting used to another new country and set of customs and friends isn't enough, she must cope with an increasingly tense political situation that becomes dangerous with alarming speed. Her life and those of her sister and brother depend on her resourcefulness and the unexpected help of an enigmatic Muslim classmate.

Write Scenes that Move Your Story Forward In Make a Scene, author Jordan E. Rosenfeld takes you through the fundamentals of strong scene construction and explains how other essential fiction-writing techniques, such as character, plot, and dramatic tension, must function within the framework of individual scenes in order to provide substance and structure to the overall story. You'll learn how to: Craft an opening scene that hooks readers and foreshadows supporting scenes Develop various scene types - from the suspenseful to the dramatic to the contemplative - that are distinct and layered Tailor character and plot around specific scene types to better convey the nuances of your storyline Create resonating climactic and final scenes that stay with readers long after they've finished your work

Writing a book is fun and easy--yes, FUN AND EASY--but it may not always feel that way. How do you find the time to write? How do you keep momentum? How do you deal with the horror of showing anyone a single sentence of your work-in-progress? The answers remain fun and easy, and author Elizabeth Sims will take your hand, dispel your worries, and show you how it's done in this stress-free guide to accomplishing your dream of writing your book. In You've Got a Book in You, Elizabeth is that encouraging voice guiding you through the entire process, from finding the right time and place to gathering all of your creative tools to diving right in and getting it done--page by page, step by step. It's easier than you think, and it all starts right here, right now. "This guide is witty, warm, and wise--and wonderfully down-to-earth as well. Elizabeth Sims doesn't just tell you that you've got a book in you, she shows you how to pour it out using your own creative spirit, common sense, and persistence." ~Lori L. Lake, author of The Gun Series and The Public Eye Mystery Series "If you're searching for the spark of inspiration to get started writing a book, and the nourishment to sustain you to THE END, Elizabeth Sims's You've Got a Book in You will show you how to find it in yourself." ~Hallie Ephron, award-winning author of There Was an Old Woman "You won't find an easier-to-follow or more inspirational writing guide." ~L.J. Sellers, author of the bestselling Jackson mysteries "By focusing the high beams of her intelligence (and humor!) on the twisty trail of book-writing, in You've Got a Book in You, Elizabeth Sims proves herself a true writer's friend. As she guides you from the creation of a "working title" through her (brilliant!) "Making-It-Better Process," this well-established pro plays her most impressive cards--stacking the deck in favor of YOU!" ~Jamie Morris, Director, Woodstream Writers "Elizabeth Sims packs a twelve-week writing course into 280 pages. Inspirational and yet extremely hands-on, You've Got a Book In You will give newbies confidence to forge ahead and will remind veteran writers why they began writing in the first place--for the joy of it. I won't be surprised when the brilliant terms 'stormwriting' and 'heartbrain' become part of every writer's lexicon." ~Julie Compton, author of Tell No Lies and Keep No Secrets "The book is encouraging and inspiring, practical and witty. As a seasoned writer, I appreciate the reminders about the importance of putting yourself on a writing schedule. No more excuses. The many 'writing blasts' are very helpful and will get any writer out of the starting blocks. I especially enjoyed the section, 'Writing with the Masters.' What better way to get inspired, get a feel for different styles, and get jump-started on your writing? Excellent advice that I plan to incorporate in my future classes. I concur with Sims that 'writer's block' is greatly exaggerated. Is there any other profession that claims such a phenomenon? 'Excuse, me, but I have 'book-keeping block,' 'playing music block,' or 'painting block' today? I don't think so. Get yourself on a schedule, read some Sims, write with the masters, and you'll be on your way. You'll be glad you met this friend on your journey to becoming a successful writer." ~Gesa Kirsch, Ph.D., Professor of English, Director of Valente Center for the Arts and Sciences, Bentley University