Jennifer Lane Books Blog

Time for 2015's first Insecure Writer's Support Group, a chance to share our hopes and fears, hosted by Alex Cavanaugh . Since starting as a writer eight years ago, I've grown. (I've gained about twenty pounds, but that's for another post.) The kind of growth I'll discuss today is writing skill development. While I still have so much to learn, one area I've improved is tighter writing. Be gone, verbal diarrhea! So I want to share this excellent post , 25 Ways to Tighten Your Writing by Betsy Mikel with YOU. A few of those tips that resonate with me: 1) Stop the adverb abuse. (I was a big offender). Dump the adverbs and choose more descriptive verbs. Instead of "I moved slowly", try "I trudged." 2) Knock out the highfalutin' vocabulary. When I first started writing, I wanted to impress everyone with my intelligence by using words like avocation, prescient, and anathema. Then I learned NOBODY CARES how smart I am. Read...

Happy July to all writers! Join us at Alex Cavanaugh's blog for the monthly support group. My favorite season is summer, especially swimming outside. Swimming a couple of miles is much more fun in the sunshine. Americans, what are you doing July 4th? Attending a cookout like me? I'll attempt these patriotic red velvet brownies (*points right*) Check out the recipe HERE . My editor and I are thick into edits for my fifth novel, Blocked . We came up with a blurb (that was tough!) and posted it on Goodreads . And now I'm getting quotes from cover designers. What do you think is a reasonable cost for a cover artist? I'll likely pony up and pay a bit more than I'd planned in order to get the designer I want. One thing I've noticed in editing is my typical writer mistakes. (Thank God for editors!) In the past, I've had shifty POV, but I think I've cleared that up. But I continue to struggle with the timeline. My editor has to ask "W...