For Awesome Writing Advice, Listen to Writing Excuses

And here I thought I wasn’t a podcast kind of gal. Well, I’m six seasons into Writing Excuses and, guess what, I’m addicted! This podcast is awesome for anyone, who wants to learn more about writing. What’s the business like? Do I get an agent? Should I self-publish? They don’t hesitate to take on these kind of hard-to-answer topics.

My great frustration when it comes to authors or publishers talking about the book industry: it’s all so non-specific. I rarely hear the business side of things being discussed. Most of the times interviews or blogs are directed at the creative process. Very important of course, but there’s so much more to writing than just finding a creative angle. Continue reading “For Awesome Writing Advice, Listen to Writing Excuses” →

My Writing Group

It’s been a little over a year since I’ve started meeting up with my writing group and I must say it has been of great help! I thought I’d open up and share how we’ve organised our writing group (and secretly try to convince you to start a writing group as well).

April last year. I posted a message in a Facebook group for fantasy writers in the Netherlands: whether anybody would be interested in setting up a writing group. Not to write together, but to share written pieces, read them up front and meet up to provide each other with comments. Four people responded, creating a group of five writers, who I have already learned much from. Continue reading “My Writing Group” →

Discontinuing Bookly Bird

Yes, unfortunately it’s true. Anja and I have decided to discontinue Bookly Bird. It is a bit of a bittersweet ending, but we’ve thought long and hard about it and basically have no other choice. In this blog I wanted to explain why we’ve made this decision.

Bookly Bird

In sum, we just cannot arrange things logistically anymore. We were a home-based company, meaning all we did, we did from home. That includes accepting packages at home and sending them out from home. Specifically these things happen during the daytime and on weekdays. As I am still studying that was never an issue. My schedule was quite flexible. However, I am almost finished. There’s only a few months left at the uni as I’m finishing up my master thesis. I’ll be working full-time after and well… we just had no alternatives as to who would arrange things during the weekdays then. Continue reading “Discontinuing Bookly Bird” →

Writing Update The Fourth Ruling

For a while now I’ve been working on a fantasy story: The Fourth Ruling. I thought I’d write a little update on my writing process so far and give some insight into what it actually is I’m writing. Especially since once this one is done, I’m planning to go through the frightening process of trying to get published. Fingers crossed! But for now, here’s my journey so far…

Writing Update, Fourth Ruling NaNoWriMo 2015 marked the beginning of this story, The Fourth Ruling. At least, it marked the start of the first draft. The idea for the story has been running in my head for a long time, but during NaNo I managed to get 50,000 words on paper. Not that they were any good, because I pushed the Ctrl-Z button and left myself with Chapter 1. The recycling bin ate the rest.

After NaNoWriMo I started my second attempt. I began drawing up my story, figuring out how I would wish it to take shape. Slowly it came to me and over the course of a year I’ve been writing and fine-tuning what I want The Fourth Ruling to be. Along with some great help from my writing group, I came to a few conclusions. Continue reading “Writing Update The Fourth Ruling” →