April Davila - Author
Last month, at the Pasadena Festival of Women Authors, Vendela Vida made an off-hand comment about her titles. She was talking about her first novel, "And Now You Can Go," and she said she regretted how nondescript it was. She said that when people … [Continue reading] about A Few Thoughts on Better Book Titles
I got a rough rejection last week. In truth, it was just a rejection, empirically not any better or worse than the dozens of others I've gotten so far this year. In fact, it was actually a pretty nice rejection, informing me that I had made the … [Continue reading] about What Success Looks Like
I've been on this kick about story structure lately. It seems the more I write, the more things occur to me and a topic I thought would be hard to tackle is actually turning out to be kind of fun to explore. So today I wanted to share a kind of silly … [Continue reading] about Oh S**t, Oh Cool or How to Keep a Story Interesting
Recently, and on two separate occasions, writer friends of mine have asked me the same question: I've been writing and writing, now how do I turn these pages into a story? If you find yourself with pages and pages of writing, and you're not sure … [Continue reading] about 3 Ways to Structure Your Pages Into a Story
In this 5-minute interview with Colum McCann he talks briefly about a lot of things. Go ahead, take a few minutes to watch it. It's good stuff. The part I keep replaying in my mind starts around minute 3:30. He says how having a structure … [Continue reading] about Finding Story Structure
Have you ever read a description in a book and actually stopped to say to yourself "damn, that's good." And then maybe you reread it? Maybe you even read it to your spouse laying there beside you in bed, and they're such a good sport that they pause … [Continue reading] about The Dreaded Cliché (And How To Avoid It)
I went to a reading last week. Seeing authors talking about their work just makes me happy. Truly, I find it so rejuvenating. If you're a writer, you really need to be going to readings (and is it happens - I send out an email every Monday listing … [Continue reading] about When Creative Panic Sets In