Writing to Provide Answers

DiAnn Mills @DiAnnMills Guest Post: Leilani Squires “I think I want to be a writer,” teenager me said to one of my heroes. “Do you have any advice?” Jill Briscoe paused between bites of brunch. “Learn as many styles of writing as you can,” she said, looking me in the eyes. “Then, no matter what kind of genre is of …

Does Our Writing Encourage Others?

By DiAnn Mills @DiAnnMills We writers thrive on our projects entering a theater of encouragement, an area in which readers react and respond to what we’ve written. And we hope positively. In the true sense of the word, a theater uses a stage to present a real or fictionalized event to those who crave an emotional experience. Thus, our characters …

Room to Breathe

DiAnn Mills @DiAnnMills Guest Post by Linda Lyle Do you ever find yourself going down the anxiety rabbit hole? Like many businesses, writing is a feast or famine. I am either waiting to hear back from editors, agents, and publishers, or I am overwhelmed by deadlines and details. Either way I feel anxious as I wonder how it will all …

Writers need understanding

Hey, Writer, Do Your Family and Friends Understand You?

By DiAnn Mills @DiAnnMills Writers long for family and friends to understand them. This afternoon, I peered out my office window and observed my neighbors laughing and talking. Longing washed over me, and I considered joining them—like a real person with a real neighborly smile, great attitude, understanding, and able to contribute to the conversation. Just that quickly, my thoughts …

Exploring A Writer’s Imagination

By DiAnn Mills @DiAnnMills Fiction writers use their imaginations to transport readers into an adventure. Imagination and creativity are not the same tools, but they work together. Imagination propels creativity by connecting what our mind sees with how best to show it to readers: an inner landscape is used to develop the outer landscape. For example, a writer imagines a …

A Writer’s Gold: Creating Curiosity

By DiAnn Mills @DiAnnMills A writing client inspired this post for readers and writers. My client and I were editing his story together. A chapter ended, and so did our time, but he’d successfully created a curiosity in me, and I couldn’t stop reading. I had to know what happened next! His response still makes me laugh. “Your enthusiasm for …