After trying and trying unsuccessfully to make myself expand on the fight scene at the end of the gnome book, I finally decided to print it out and start the editing/proofing process. I’m hoping by the time I’m at the end of the book, I’ll be fired up about the final fight scene. 🙂

Anya is working on the cover for the Libby Fox trilogy. I think I’m just going to call it Vampires’ Curse, as suggested by Michael Hubbard. It’s in two of the titles and it’s simple. Some people are mentioning that they think the apostrophe is in the wrong place. But it’s after the “s” on purpose. This is a curse for all vampires, not just one.

One thing that bugs me is when I go to a blog that’s all nice and pretty, and obviously a lot of work has gone into it to make it look great, but then I can’t read it. Sometimes it’s the fancy fonts that make a blog hard to read. Most of the time it’s the contrast between the background and the text. I went to the blog of a traditionally published author yesterday and the background was black. I’m not sure what the text color even was because I was out of there in seconds. Not only could I not read it, but it actually hurt my eyes! The contrast between background and text was horrible.

Here’s something that bothers me in some writing. Using big words to sound impressive. I know we need to expand our vocabulary and, as writers, we should find different words to use rather than the same old words all the time. But it really irks me when an author uses some off the wall words that most people would have no clue about. Sometimes the words don’t even sound natural in the story. They come off awkward and a little pretentious. Yes, stretch your vocabulary…but not to the point where it completely distracts the reader. Use the obscure words sparingly. A reader shouldn’t have to go to the dictionary more than once or twice. 🙂

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