I began wondering about symbols of peace because during the Christmas season, I always have thoughts and hopes of peace on earth…especially on certain years, like this one. I’ve often sent Christmas cards with the symbol of a dove carrying an olive branch, like the one on the left. I suspected there were other animal symbols of peace, too.
Hey friends! Today, I’m going to be discussing a sensitive subject. As an author on a limited income who wants to re-release a couple of books, and as a former executive editor and creative director who’s worked with professional designers on dozens of covers, I have a lot of thoughts on this. Do indie authors need to hire professional
Hi friends! Welcome to a Friday recap! Here’s what’s been going on… My Blog Turned 9 Years Old Today! BrynDonovan.com does some serious numbers for the personal website of a not-yet-famous author. It has several thousand subscribers and it gets over 3,000 hits a day. This is my 488th post. I can’t even guess how many hundreds or thousands of
As a book editor, I’m always asking writers to add some Christmas scents to Christmas stories… The scents of the season are such a great way to evoke a happy or nostalgic mood. Smells from our past, and especially Christmas scents, trigger memories so strongly that they can make us feel as though we’ve been transported back in time.
What’s a word of the year? It’s basically a one-word goal. A word of the year sums up your wishes, hopes, and intentions. When you choose a word of the year, you’re choosing a vision for the year to come. I have 150 power words here, including 50 words that describe roles. Those words are at the end, if you
“Can you start a novel with dialogue?” is a question I’ve been asked three times in the past month, so I thought I’d blog about it! There are many bits of popular advice floating around the writing community, and “never start a novel with a line of dialogue” is one of them. Of course, when it comes to writing, when
There are several great cozy mystery publishers with open submissions. In fact, you can submit to a few of the biggest cozy mystery publishers without an agent! Now, there are a lot of great reasons to have an agent. I’m certainly grateful for mine. And many cozy authors do very well with the self-publishing route! But because everyone’s path is