Writing Archives - Page 2 of 9

I Made a Mistake… and Now My Book Comes from the Future

Thea van Diepen

I made a mistake. And it wasn’t a small one. I Couldn’t Believe It Earlier today, I’d been putting together an ebook for a short story that will be available for free to anyone who comes by my booth during the Edmonton Expo this weekend. It was when I copy-pasted my copyright text from Hidden in Sealskin and went to make the appropriate changes that I noticed it. Oh no. I opened back up the Hidden in Sealskin Scrivener file. I

What is Spec Fic? <-- A Neat New Website!

Thea van Diepen

Spec fic, aka speculative fiction is a term that apparently originated with Robert Heinlein in 1941, and which fills a much-needed lexical gap when talking about fiction genres. It’s a term that I thought a lot more people knew when I learned it, which has led to awkward exchanges of this variety: “What do you write?” “Speculative fiction.” *entire room stares blankly* On the days when I don’t feel like explaining myself, I’ve changed my reply to “mostly fantasy.” Which

Two Sentences to Easier Copywriting (includes a video)

Thea van Diepen

Occasionally, I do workshops on an online community called The Puttytribe. Back in May, while getting my Patreon page ready, I stumbled across a method that made copywriting a bizillion times easier for me. It was so exciting, I decided to do a workshop on it in the hopes that it would help others as well. Writers especially. It’s a pain in the butt trying to figure out how to talk about books effectively. How do you communicate to people

Awful Story Outlines (That Made it into Stories), Part 2

Thea van Diepen

Not too long ago, I shared all the actual outlines of the planned story arcs for Kara the Brave (my webcomic). Today, I thought it’d be terrible helpful/entertaining to share the outlines for some of my stories that are actually now published in their entirety. The Illuminated Heart To be entirely honest, I wrote the outline for this one after I’d started writing it. I know. I’m really, really bad at this. Here’s the outline: Part One: God Has Left Me

How Canadian Literature Is Like Comfy Jeans (Lessons from #Theareads)

Thea van Diepen

Anyone who’s actually read a lot of Canadian literature is probably looking at me right now, going “Thea… are you… are you okay?” Canadian literary fiction has this tendency to be really depressing. I get that. This isn’t about that. :P Up here in the Great White North (and, yes, we got snow this week where I live. In May. Lucky us), we get a lot of American media. Movies, TV shows, books. Heck, we’re all about just as informed