What is your favorite quote? What words in it make it your favorite quote?

Prepare for the Writing Challenge

During Words Matter Week, we host a writing challenge. Each day we will post a question on […]

Dialogue Tag or Action Beat?

What is the difference between a dialogue tag and an action beat? Why do they matter and why should we know how to format them?

Dialogue tags help your reader understand what is […]

Word Choice. Inner Thoughts. Open Book. What do these three have in common?

Prepare for the Writing Challenge

During Words Matter Week, we host a writing challenge. Each day we will post a question on […]

Walk like you talk. How do your words reflect in your actions?

Prepare for the Writing Challenge

During Words Matter Week, we host a writing challenge. Each day we will post a question on our blog and […]

Words Matter Week, which is in its 15th year, is a holiday that is celebrated annually the first full week in March by the National Association of Independent Writers and Editors.

Words are the basis for […]

Every writer finds themselves blocked from time to time. Maybe you’re overwhelmed. Maybe you’re tired. Maybe you’re just sick of telling the same old familiar stories from your own life.

Or maybe, like me, you […]

We wanted to get to know Karin Beery (NAIWE’s Fiction Expert) better, so last month we sat down with her. Here are some thoughts she shared with us.

What role do editors play in the publishing […]

I read a book that says writers can — and even should — write just about anywhere and everywhere. We should write in cafes, restaurants, and coffee shops; on buses, boats, trains, and planes; and where beauty sur […]

No author wants to be sued, but since self-publishing has become so common, writers who work-for-hire are particularly vulnerable.

And they know it.

When Marcia Layton Turner, the executive director of the […]

Many freelancers end up working with clients who are not an ideal fit for them especially at the beginning of their business, but bad clients and even toxic clients can still land in your lap as your business […]

New Mexico is a land of amazing sunrises and sunsets with a sky constantly changing colors and forms, mountains framing the background, and a desert that stretches across the mesa often giving the land a mystical […]

Summer is ending, the grain has been cut, and Jimmy Carlson and his family wait nervously for the arrival of the threshing machine. When it rumbles onto the farm, the whole neighborhood gathers for a […]

If you’ve got passion, a plan, and persistence, you don’t need an agent. The Indie Author Revolution: An Insider’s Guide to Self-Publishing is your friendly guide to the new era of self-publishing. Ev […]

One of the great things about fiction is the opportunity to step into someone else’s head and not only experience a new and different life, but to feel the excitement, anguish, and fear right along with the c […]

Hope all is well. I am excited to share this announcement of my new website, authorbillbutler.com

After receiving emails and comments from individuals whose lives have been changed for the better because […]