Tag Archives: how to get published

FREE Writing Webinar w/ HM Ward in 2020

Have u ever thought about WRITING a book? If u have, come to my free mini masterclass (aka webinar).

My advice: Cooooome!

It’s the pre-cursor for my signature writing course, The 60 Day Novel. Students said that is my beeeest course ever, hands down. I’ll share some of their insight later this week.

Before we do that and before 60 Day Novel Course opens for the only time this year, and you try to figure out if it’s right for you, if you have the time, money, energy, and what-not…I want to invite you to spend about an hour with me talking about writing YOUR book.

My mini masterclass is FREE. And if you have thought about writing a book at all, this is your chance to learn from someone who sold millions with over 50 bestsellers. We’re talking New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal.

You can learn from anyone, but why not learn from someone who was a mega successful writer (selling over 20 million books) before turning to teaching?

My advice to anyone seeking to learn to write: get the best advice you can from the person you admire the most.

That is why I’m offering this free webinar before the signature 60 Day Novel Course opens for enrollment this year. You’ll get an idea of how things roll.

Plus we’ll address the 5 issues screwing you over and keeping you from writing your book. Right now. What you decide to do from there is your decision.

Stuff to know about the free webinar:

1. If u want to write, think about writing, tried to write a book—come. It’s free. It’s good.

B. It’s less than an hour and you’ll know what’s holding u back by the end. And what to do…

2. For those ready to jump in heard 1st and be a writer. Now! An amazeball price on 60 Day Novel will b offered during the webinar, after the class ends. Glee will oooze out of u. It’s that good.

3. A mind blowing bonus is coming during the webinar. This alone is worth attending. You’ll die over this one. It’s. That. Good.

4. Plus a live Q&A. We talk about u writing. I answer u questions!

THIS—>U gotta b there to get it!

Don’t miss it.

You’ll see ppl talking about it later and b bummed u missed out.

Go sign up now!

 http://www.Rebelwriters.com/writenow

(The pun! In the url! )

I cannot wait to spend this time with you guys! I love talking shop! Books!

Oh, and when the webinar fills up/ sells out, there won’t be any slots left. I don’t want you to miss out. Right now we are about half full.

If you aren’t sure about the date or whether you can get to the webinar live – sign up. You can always decide to cancel later and let someone else grab your seat.

There’s no risk. I can’t wait! Seriously. Going to be epic!

#excited #eeeeeep! #writer

Tips for Young Writers

Tips for Young Writers by HM WardI’ve had a lot of fans asking me questions about writing.  I thought I would take some time to post info on here, so I can go into more detail than on my facebook fan page for DEMON KISSED.  There isn’t much room to write a response over there.

Personally, I write because I have to.  It’s a means of expression.  It’s the same reason why some people paint, and others sing, or play an instrument.  Creative expression is a do-or-die thing for me.

I’ve been writing stories since I was ten-years-old.  They mirrored folklore when I started, and slowly developed into fantasy.

When I was younger, I would hand write my stories.  They grew from a few pages to several hundred.  I didn’t edit much then.  I wrote to write, and for no other reason.  I followed one storyline, that I loved, and the stack of papers grew.  I kept them in a Robert Frost folder that I got from my middle school.  I still have that stack stored in there today.  It’s fun to go back and see what the mind of a child came up with.  Some stories were so imaginative, that I surprised myself when I went back to read them later.

My first and foremost tip is this –  Write.

Write because you love it.  Write because you have to.

I had no intention of seeking publication with my early writings.  I did them for me, and no one else.  That type of writing is important, and will foster a sense of self that you can’t get any way else.

When I was in 10th grade, I wanted to write poetry.  I sucked at it.  I remember sitting on my bed, trying to spill my feelings onto the page in a few eloquent words, and finding I filled up both sides of the page.

It looked like a story, not prose.  I forced myself to slash down the words, choosing more vivid images, and stronger words to tell the story.  Eventually my poems became what I wanted – a reflection of my soul.

In college I had no trouble writing papers.  None at all.  While other kids thought writing a 10 page paper sucked, I totally thought it was fine.  I still remember getting the assignment for my first 30 page paper.  The entire class looked ill.  I thought about it for a second, and knew I could do that.  No problem.

I have a secret for you:  The people who write, just to write, have a much easier time writing when writing’s required.  I think the longest paper I had to write for my masters work was 75 pages.  By then, I thought 30 pages was fluff.

Natural writers have a very unfair advantage, because we have been using words, molding them to our will, long before someone told us we had to.  We think it’s fun.

And dude, it totally is!

So, onto how do you keep the storyline straight in your head, work out the plot, and subplots.  Several of you asked me about this, and different writers do it different ways.  For DEMON KISSED I utilized several methods.  First, I collected my ideas, having a general idea of the flow, but unsure of the secondary conflicts.  I made outlines.  That helped me see how the story was progressing.  The only bad thing about sticking to an outline is that ideas come to me while I’m writing, so I’d abandon the outline.  So it’s there to help, as a guide, but if I want to go off-roading, I do that too.

At one point, I tried making a storyboard.  That’s where you take index cards and write out your storyline, and post it on a cork board.  This works really well for linear thinkers.  I mapped out my main story line at one point, but the secondary plots that wove in and out were more difficult to capture on cork.

Personally, I think very abstractly, so linear isn’t my thing.  My cork board now holds notes I make to myself.

Notes were the best thing I did to keep the plot moving forward, and keeping things straight.  It’s not like I’d forget huge things, but I found little details (that help tie the whole story together) would come to me at odd times and be quickly forgotten.  Now, I jot down whatever I’m thinking and stick it on the board.  When I adapt the idea into the novel, I toss the note.  That was a HUGE help.

The most challenging thing I’ve encountered, so far, is having enough guts.  Yeah, I wrote the entire novel before I told anyone.  I sat down one day and decided to write.  My storyline formed and I just kept going.

For me, telling people that I did it was the hard part.  I write, paint, sing, play the cello, so it’s not like it’s a shocker to anyone that I’d do something that I love.  At the same time, it’s like learning to fly by jumping off a cliff.  You’ll find out if you can’t do it when you hit the bottom.  That’s a pretty brutal way to learn, but you’ll learn über fast.  That is the Holly way of learning things – things that weren’t covered in school.

Have a good week!

This popular post was from Holly’s original blog dated Oct 26, 2010.