Travel Writing From Home

Guest Post
by Jordan Clary Travel writing might conjure up images of exotic resorts, luxury cruises or riding across sand dunes on a camel, and while, travel writing can, indeed, open up some of amazing experiences, it’s not necessary to travel far or even travel at all to write and sell articles. You can start with your own city, neighborhood or even backyard to find ideas for travel stories. Every place is a destination for someone and you are the best expert on your area. Learn to look at your own town with new eyes. What might a visitor like to do? What are the local products? Are there any specialized niches you can fit into? Most of the ‘rules’ for travel writing are the same as for anything else. A well-written,…
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Brianna Soloski on Becoming a Freelancer

Guest Post
Today's guest is another Musaling, this time an editor and freelancer to bring you a totally new perspective. Please give Brianna Soloski a warm welcome. * * * * When I was little, I wanted to be a teacher or an author. I went to school for education, but ended up not going into that field. I was working at a preschool, but was laid off in 2008. I floundered for two years after that, moving a few times, not working, unsure what I wanted to do. Summer 2010 found me in Seattle working at a summer camp. It also led to a long chat with my cousin about what I really wanted to do with my life. She suggested I go back to writing, since I’d always enjoyed it…
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Plotting in Three Parts

Plotting in Three Parts

Guest Post, Nanowrimo, Novels, Writing, Writing: The Process
Today I'd like to introduce Anne Marie, author of La Dame a La Licorne, brought to you by Musa Publishing. This will be her ninth year participating in Nanowrimo. Lucky for those of you scrambling for ideas and trying to figure out how you're going to outline a novel before November first, Anne's got some ideas of her own about outlining which I hope you'll enjoy. For the past eight years I’ve participated in National Novel Writing Month (aka: NaNoWriMo or NaNo). Every year I’ve tried a different approach to writing. I wanted to prove to myself that there isn’t one way to tell a story, and the methods outside my comfort zone might actually work better. Besides, what’s comfortable about writing 50,000 words in one month? Answer: everything when…
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Karina Fabian on Surviving the Submission Process

Guest Post, Novels, Preparing to Submit
Today I'd like to welcome Karina Fabian, author of several ebooks across different genres. I've interviewed her here before and today she's joining us with a guest post to discuss the submission process and celebrate her latest novel, Live and Let Fly, to be released on April 20th. I hope you enjoy. I’d like to thank Dianna for hosting me on the Live and Let Fly book tour. I’m especially excited about this one because it was a long time coming, and when she asked me to write about the submission process, I’m not sure she knew what she was getting into! Live and Let Fly features a snarky dragon detective, Vern, and his partner, the magic-slinging nun, Sister Grace. I’ve told many of their adventures in short stories and…
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Guest Post: Martin Bolton on Co-Writing a Novel

Guest Post, Writing
Today I'd like to welcome Martin Bolton, my second guest poster here at Dianna's Writing Den. I hope you'll find this post as interesting as I did. On Co-Writing a Novel When my good friend, David Pilling, and I decided to write a novel together we had no idea where to start. We had both written plenty of stuff individually, but how do you coordinate a dual effort? Before we could think of the actual story, we had to decide how we would both contribute to a book without it being disjointed and difficult to read. After a few decent ales and a good chat, we came up with the idea of a story with two main protagonists who are born on opposite sides of a world, have never met,…
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