I saw a lot of milestones in 2023. Not only did I publish my 10th book this year, but it also won a major award. This was my 10th year as a Municipal Liaison (ML) for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and my 14th year of participating. I also finished my first trilogy of 10th-anniversary editions, along with audiobook versions of these books. This was also the year I joined the Colorado Author's League which has helped me connect with other writers in my state. Not all the plans I made at the beginning of the year came to fruition, but the beauty of having multiple projects in various stages of planning is that I can pick what I want to work on next. So, while plans change, here is what I actually did this year...
2023 YEAR IN REVIEW
The Third Degree (10th Anniversary and Audiobook versions)
By now, putting together a new version with character sketches (by Robin Childs) and a...
There's usually a point in a writer's career when they have an amazing idea and flesh it out—only to find that it's been done before. Now, I'm not talking about a word-for-word "they stole my idea before I even wrote it" kind of plagiarism here. I'm talking about the raw concept being similar enough as to draw easy comparisons. These are the ideas that authors tell their friends about and receive the feedback, "Oh, it's like [FILL IN THE BLANK]." This devastates inexperienced writers. However, those who have been writing for a while welcome the comparison. Why?
Contextual originality.
If you gave two writers the same prompt (like for an anthology), they'd likely come up with two completely different ways of handling it. Similarly, even if someone already wrote your idea, that doesn't mean they wrote it how you'd write it. We all have different inspirations and worldviews that make what we write contextually original. It's been said that all stories have...
