DeAnna Knippling

Bad House Spirit Kindle | Nook | Kobo | iBooks | Goodreads (reviews) Carrie used to clean houses for a living. Mostly it was hard work but it was all right. But there was one house that was bad. Not the cleaning, although it was. But the house itself, from the creepy pictures to the barred and tinfoil-covered windows to the KEEP OUT signs […]

Note:  As I was writing this, I realized that I had gone into full nerd mode, which is something that most people don’t need, most of the time.  So I’m going give what I think most people are going to want first, and then leave the full-nerd-mode blog post after a break, in case you are not

Pacing.  What is it? Pacing is a tool that controls the speed and rhythm at which a story is told and the readers are pulled through the events. —Writer’s Digest. Okay, fair enough.  But what is that tool?  It refers to how fast or slow events in a piece unfold and how much time elapses

Kobo always has a ton of sales.  From now until August 22, 50% off a bunch of titles, including Alice. Here’s the link for all the books in the promotion.  The promo code is 50AUG. And here’s the link for Alice.  

So after I wrote the previous post on information management, I let my subconscious play with the idea.  Sometimes, sometimes, if I’ve done my homework and researched my researches and thought my thinks, my subconscious can be set loose on a problem and can come up with an answer.  Voila!  Insight. It was another one of

So I had another one of those big-picture insights.  I wish I had an interesting story about how it came about, but I don’t.  I was just sitting in front of the computer working on an outline for a client and…pop! It happens sometimes, you know.  I have a brain like a computer.  You set

OVERALL The best people to get fiction writing advice from are long-term professional writers who have been supporting themselves through their fiction work for 15+ years, publishing at least a book a year (therefore not relying on a fluke).  Short story collection = 1 book.  Other types of writing (e.g., graphic novels) don’t count. Therefore

So far, one of the major differences I’ve noticed between Colorado Springs and Denver (other than the fact of neighborhoods, which is a concept that’s halfway between a sports team and a social class, who knew?) is that infrastructure is far, far more important. In Colorado Springs, I went:  Just look at the goddamn roads.  Look

James Aquilone writes fun, fast, funny, and twisty fiction; I’m thinking this is gonna be good.  He’s doing a Kickstarter on the project to a) make sure he raises interest in the series, b) pay for illustrations, and c) streeeetch toward funding an audiobook.  Read a sample of the book below–and check out some of

So I’m forty-two now.  When I turned forty, I didn’t suffer from any extra insight into life or anything; I certainly didn’t have a mid-life crisis, unless you want to count having some random thoughts that I hadn’t accomplished much for my age.  Then I remembered how much time I spent trying to be the