Any artist will tell you the key to progressing in an artistic endeavor is consistency. This applies to painting, drawing, digital art, music composition, and yes, writing. Maybe especially writing. It should come as a surprise to exactly no one that, six months ago, I was deep in a writer's block. It wasn't that I [...]
How do you sum up a weekend adventure that had approximately 865,342 high points? I'm not sure I can, but I'll at least attempt to highlight a few moments that made my time at the #UCIJretreat2021 amazing and memorable and oh-so-worth-it. (That's Unforgettable Characters & Incredible Journeys, in case you were wondering.) A few months [...]
Not going to lie. The banning of a certain someone from social media this week has me letting out a breath I didn't know was holding. (I'm a YA author. You knew I had to use that phrase eventually, right?) There is still so much work to be done to right our listless ship of [...]
I head one of the local SCBWI critique groups in my county for Young Adult and Middle Grade authors and, friends, I must confess I feel a little guilty. Sometimes, this group seems like the L. Ryan Storms writing self-improvement hour. I get SO. MUCH. from my dear friends and our talks about what elements [...]
I shoot some stats just about every year, mostly to prove to myself that, yes, I *am* actually moving forward in this thing called a writing career. Given the craziness of 2020 all around, *I* wouldn't even blame me if I'd chosen to fall off the face of the earth, or hide under a blanket [...]
Welcome to December! I should be working on my WIP right now instead of tallying up numbers from this year, but what is a writer if not a procrastinator, right? So I bring you my 2019 writing stats. People often ask me how long it takes to get a book written and what a writer [...]
It's time for another Twitter friend book review and this time it's Roselle Lim's Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and Fortune. I didn't think twice about picking up this book. It has everything I love - a romance, a little bit of magic, a girl finding her place in the world. I wouldn't think of [...]
Hooray, we've reached one of my favorites in my Twitter friend book reviews. This month, I read Jean Grant's Will Rise From Ashes. If her name looks familiar, it's because I've mentioned Jean before on my blog. Several times, actually, as Jean is a critique partner and beta-reader extraordinaire. In fact, I mentioned Will Rise From [...]
Okay, okay, so we're a little more than 6 months into the year. Perhaps I was being a tad ambitious about reading 12 Twitter friends' books in a year, especially when my own book launched a few months ago and I've had several signings and events and I'm still trying to keep up on recommended reading [...]
This month, in my Twitter-Friend Book Review, I chose Katrina Ariel’s Wild Horse Heart. I first glimpsed this book when Katrina and I became friends on Twitter and I was lucky enough to read some of her other work as a critique partner long ago. Since I already knew I enjoyed her writing, I bought [...]
L. Ryan Storms 