Tips to Help Finish Your Novel 3.2

Part 2 continues on how to follow the line and start writing your novel. I love this quote below, "Don't write the parts the readers skip." How do we do this? Timothy Hallinan shared tips on how to finish your novel:

5. What we leave out
“Don't write the parts readers skip.”-- Elmore Leonard
"All writing is a process of selection. What is left out is often as important to the flow of the story as what is left in.
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Timothy Hallinan tells us how to finish your novel: Part 1

As writers, (I speak for myself) we usually have a MILLION ideas bouncing around in heads, but once we start... then we get another idea.... that seems better. We stop that story, and move to the next. It's like a quilt, we have a box of pieces, but nothing put together.

Author, Timothy Hallinan, has written a great article on how to help us finish our novels.
Part 1:
This article is for you if:
You’ve started a novel but are having trouble finishing it, or
You want to start a novel but aren’t sure you’ll be able to finish it.
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Why use a pseudonym? Who are you by Wendy Delaney

There are many reasons people write under a pseudonym. You want to write something different than what you've been writing and create a new you. Many times people want to keep their real world separate from your writer's life. Good plan. I've lost a job over my website...gesh...
Seattle author, Wendy Delaney, shares why she thinks you might want to consider it:
"Roger Daltrey of the Who belts out a good question every opening episode of CSI—“Who are you?”
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Why I write erotic regency romance by Brita Addams

I haven't settled on one genre yet, but this is a great question. How do you start writing what you're writing? I caught up with author, Brita Addams, and asked
Tell us how you got into writing erotic Regency romance?
"I am writing this strictly as an author who prayed fervently for publisher recognition and finally found it. As a person who doesn't 'jump the gun' as my mother used to say, I did my homework before deciding to write something I hoped one day would find its way into a reader's hands that didn't belong to someone I was related to.

Much like the experience our parents were always talking about us getting, in order to write anything, it had to be something I knew something about. I love romance and I also love history, particularly American and British. Reading Regency romance was almost a given, a perfect fit. The Regency was a time of social strictures and mores the like of which we, in our times, have never seen. As an author, I enjoy putting my characters into situations that are contrary to social expectations. When I can take an aristocrat and reduce him to mush with one look or touch from a feisty, independent lady, I am a happy camper."
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How to use your blog as a promotional tool

We've written the book, but there's more to it than that. When we get published, we need people to READ it! What can we do to get people to LOVE us, and want to run out and buy our books!

I asked Author, Libby Sternberg, what do you think about writing blogs?
"Readers now expect authors to have websites, but many authors also maintain blogs. Are blogs worth the time and effort? Do they help authors attract readers?
I'm slowly learning how to make blogging worthwhile, not just for my readers but for me, as an author.
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Patricia Mason tells us to always look on the quirky side of life for story ideas

As authors, it helps to look outside the box. Many times we think we have to color inside the lines. Is this true? What if we want to make the tree orange and the sky green?
Patricia Mason broke out of her box and finished her novel:
"For many years—I’m embarrassed to say exactly how many—the completion of a novel seemed to elude me. I would work on something for a few weeks but then interest would wane and the first three chapters ended up under my bed or taking space in some storage tub full of memorabilia. They say to “write what you know.” For me that didn’t seem to work. I didn’t want to write about my real life. Real life is sometimes depressing and always boring to anyone but me. So what is an aspiring novelist to do?

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Economical ways to do promotion

We all strugle with ideas for promotion. You can drop a pretty penny on it. Local author, Delle Jacobs, shares a few idea on how to create your own bookmarks on the cheap:
"Now that I've got a cover for LADY WICKED, my coming-soon release from The Wild Rose Press, I just had to do a bookmark. A little re-positioning, fine-tuning, and some blurbs and addresses. And a new design on the backside. Add a subtle color gradient for spice. (Oh yeah, I put a dress on her. Just because I could.)
For those of you who have a thing for RT cover models, and you know Jimmy Thomas, you may recognize him in the embrace silhouette. He's got some fabulous photos I'd love to use on covers, and they're not all that expensive- and pretty cheap for the e-book or bookmark size- $5.
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