Jade Varden Official Blog

Do you work on more than one book at a time? Blog, tweet and edit your latest creation all at once? Keep a smartphone in one hand while you get work done on the laptop with the other? Multitasking can be a great idea...but it has definitely got its limits. Too much multitasking can be the ruination of every goal you set. Juggling Tasks Self-published authors tend to keep a lot of balls up in the air. They work full-time, promote their indie books and write in their spare time. They have family lives, and friends, and favorite shows to watch on TV. Multitasking is  a natural side effect of leading a busy life and to be frank, pretty much everybody does it. Those social media breaks you take when you're in the middle of a chapter is multitasking, just like maintaining a blog and writing a novel at the same time. You do it, I do it, self-published authors can't survive without it. But if keep on juggling, eventually something's going to fall. Try not to be standin...

I'm behind my laptop most of the time, working (or playing around on Twitter). I usually find a way to work on it even when I'm eating dinner. And when I do put it down, I'll pick up something else. I've got a box of crafts projects just waiting for attention. I'm not idle very often...and sometimes, I have to force myself to do nothing . The importance of daydreaming just can't be neglected if you're a writer. Daydream Believer It's easy for an author to keep their minds busy, even if you don't have your face shoved into a laptop screen. I think about plots, imagine conversations, endlessly go through my list of stuff to do...think about all the junk I'd like to buy on Amazon, and pine for Game of Thrones (hangin' in there until March). None of it leaves a lot of room for daydreaming, but it's important to make a point of stopping your brain every once in a while. Put down the smartphone, walk away from the TV, refuse t...

Frankly, it would be laughable for me to make an attempt to advise anyone else about time management. I've got hours of actual work to do still, and as I write this it's 12 am on a Monday night. I have to get up at 10 am by the latest to start a new day. I don't even have time for this blog post, but the post I was going to write was all about sticking with your commitments. It was so preachy, I decided to save it and edit it down for another day (I've got to remove all none-too-subtle judgments). Honestly, if I knew a thing about time management I would get more than 5 hours of sleep a night. But here's what I can do: I can tell you how not to end up like me. Time Can't Be Managed First things first: admit defeat. Wave the white flag, and give in. You can stress about time, you can plan, you can make lists, you can set alarms and you can create all the rules you want, but time is still going to win. It marches on. Time can't really be manage...

Are you willing to produce really ugly writing? Sometimes, there's just no other way. There are going to be times when putting something (anything) on the page is the most important task. The details can always come later. The Beauty of Ugly Writing There are moments in every writer's journey where suddenly, it's all easy. The words just somehow flow magically, appearing on the page through your fingers with absolutely no effort whatsoever. Later when you go back to read it, you're amazed.  Then, there are those other moments when it physically hurts to get words on the page. When everything you write just looks terrible, and every word is difficult. But there's beauty to be found even in ugly writing. You can always come back and do your editing later, clean up that text and add all the necessary details .  Just get down the rough bones of the story, write the stuff that's supposed to happen (no matter how ugly), and add all the descrip...

If you could see behind the scenes of the blog, you'd probably be appalled at the vast number of Writing 101 posts I've started and stopped writing. I wrote several of them last week in multiple abortive attempts to add content to the blog. More than one of them was a thinly-disguised rant...because a single forum post ticked me off for a solid three days.  Zen and the Art of Stress-Free Forum Maintenance I've been working a lot lately. I've been on the job most of the time, and when not on the job I've still got stuff to do around the house . There are only two boxes remaining , so I've made a lot of progress...but I'm not done. Two of the biggest projects still loom before me; I've got to do them both tomorrow and attend a bridal shower.  With all this weighing on my mind all week, and deadlines looming over my head, I've been getting only four to five hours of sleep a night. So I'm understandably cranky when I check my forums, whi...

Julie and Julia is one of the more interesting books on film you'll watch, because it's not based on one book. It's based on two books written by authors who were worlds apart. The movie shows both stories, though they did not occur concurrently, and somehow manages to blend both together pretty seamlessly. The Books Julie and Julia is based on My Life in France , an autobiography by the famous chef Julia Child. It was published in 2006 and compiled with the help of Julia's grandnephew Alex Prud'homme. He completed it after her 2004 death. In the main, it takes place from 1948 to 1954. This is when Child lived in Paris, Marseilles and Provence with her husband Paul. It's when her star as a chef rose, and she became a household name.  The book details the arrival of the Childs in Paris, and Julia's love affair with French cuisine. She began taking classes at Ecole du Cordon Bleu and learned how to master cooking. She learned how to make...

"Rain knows her new family is hiding something, she just doesn't know what yet." "Pretty soon everything in her world begins to topple down like, well, a deck of cards...the unraveling is perfectly paced and skillfully executed." Justice (Deck of Lies, #1) has been reviewed at Lost in Books! There are some spoilers, so check it out if you've already read Justice and see if you agree with the reviewer.

Today I'm very pleased to host author and friend of the blog, Theresa M. Jones. She offers up amazing reviews on her book blog, Keepin' Up With the Joneses . Now, other bloggers will be reviewing her debut novel Power . My blog is an official stop on her book tour, so stop! Keep reading to learn more about the book and find out how to get your copy. Don't miss the amazing giveaway opportunity at the end -- you could win a signed copy of the book and a $15 Amazon gift card! Thousands of years after the battle between the angels, when Lucifer was defeated by Michael in the Heavens, the war is still being fought on Earth by the humans who have their Power, the Angel’s Power.  Allison Stevens is a 21 year old single mother who gets thrown into the middle of this battle when Damien, the Leader of the Rising, decides to hunt her down and kill her because he fears she is the descendant prophesied to save the world.  David, a member of the Order, takes ...

Any novel is made up of many different elements. There's the story itself, and the cover of course, and you can't forget about the title or the blurb. Then maybe you'll need a trailer, a whole marketing campaign, an idea for a sequel...it's a lot to do. But while you're doing all that, don't forget another important element: the log line.  Teasing Them The log line, also spelled logline and log-line, is a one-phrase teaser for your book. Even if you don't recognize the terminology, you've definitely seen log lines before. A good log line is a great hook for readers, a brief taste of your writing and everything the story has in store for them. The log line can bring the entire cover design together, tempting readers to explore further. To come up with a good one, try to sum up your book in a single sentence, without giving away any sort of spoilers. Vague is okay as long as it's really interesting.  Place the log line prominently on...

Lots of authors have "day jobs." This is because writing books really doesn't pay well, unless you're a prolific bestseller like Stephen King or you write a runaway hit like Stephenie Meyer. In perusing forums, a hobby that's eating away at much of my free time , I've discovered that many indie authors dream of the day when they can become full-time writers. But be careful what you wish for. It's time to find out what it's like to write full-time. Writing All the Time I am a full-time writer, and it's not glamorous. It's not even convenient. What's it like to write full-time? It's like having 5 different parents, or rowdy children, demanding something from you every single second. And it's a whole lot like staring at a screen for 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. Out of the 80-plus hours you spend writing in a given week, you're incredibly lucky it you get to spend 5 of them writing something you actually want to writ...

So, I'm obsessed with The Time Machine , the story by H. G. Wells. I've always been fascinated by time travel, and as a point of fact I very sincerely believe that Back to the Future , and not Star Wars , is the best movie trilogy ever created. Wouldn't it be amazing to go back in time? Or even better, to go forward? But time isn't the main reason I'm obsessed with the story, why I find reasons to bring it up all the time (and spend a ton of time getting completely blank stares in return). It's because of the way the story ends...and not even the way it ends on the page.  That's the Power of Words In the original short story, the main character doesn't have a name and he comes to a very vague end. The reader sees him leave in his time machine, and he's pretty much never heard from again. It's not the greatest of endings (sorry, Mr. Wells), and that's why it got changed for the 1960s film adaptation.  In the film version of ...

What's the secret to being a better writer? Read a lot . Now, you've got to figure out how to fund your book habit without going broke.  Easier Reading Isn't Always Cheaper Ereaders like the Kindle have put hundreds of books in every reader's hands, but the easy availability of ebooks doesn't automatically equal cheaper reading. Even if you set a spending limit, buying books adds up quickly. Suppose you never spend more than $5 on a book. Read three books a week, and you're $15 in the hole before you get your next paycheck. It starts to add up. There are ways to fund your book habit, however, and get your reading material...and no, I'm not going to tell you to go to the library. Swap: Visit Paperbackswap to list the books you're willing to trade, and get the books you want in return. The website connects book lovers who want to swap, and makes it easy for you to keep yourself in fresh reading material. Review: Start reviewing books o...

You know how they say that no matter what you write, it's all been done before? They're 100% correct. Pygmalion , you will find, is a plot line that still appears in modern story all the time...and it was written two thousand years ago. The Book Chances are pretty good that no matter what you want to write about, your main theme was already written into a play by the Greeks, or Shakespeare, and likely both. Such is the case with Pygmalion , which revolves around a now-classic plot. It appears as one in a series of epic poems written by Ovid back in BC. In this early version, it's about a sculptor who falls in love with his own creation. I can relate to that. Don't all writers fall in love with certain books, certain characters, maybe even just a paragraph? In the story, the sculptor (he's the title character) takes his love to the alter of Venus, and she is transformed into flesh. It ends happily. And it's a familiar theme. Remember Pino...

Love is a big focus of February, and it commonly crops up in books. By no means is love limited to the romance genre (though this genre is dedicated to the emotion). It appears in mysteries, horror novels, suspense tales, science fiction, YA...well, we don't have all day. When characters fall in love, you've got to write it in a believable way. Otherwise, I won't feel the love...and then, what the heck is the point of having it in the book?  Lovely Stereotypes When characters fall in love on the page, authors are always taking a risk. Love is perhaps the hardest of all emotions to define, and it's certainly difficult to recreate in fiction. How does one describe the euphoria...and the unspeakable pain? The deep longing for togetherness...and the desperate fear of losing one's own independence?  Yeah, it's hard to write about love. I know this because I've seen so many authors get it totally wrong. Look out for common love traps in your ow...

"I was on the edge of my seat by the end and I stayed up until one am to finish it then immediately downloaded book two."  "There are many more interesting characters to round out the cast, each with their own secrets and mysteries. To be honest I'm not sure our main character can trust a single one of them." Justice (Deck of Lies, #1) has been reviewed at A Thousand Lives. Read it to find out why the reviewer gave the book the highest possible rating!

Do you know how to interpret the rejection letters you get? Figure out what agents really mean when they say your book "isn't the right fit" or "doesn't meet our current needs," and figure out what you need to do to start getting some different answers.  Interpreting the Literary Agents Literary agents speak in a polite code couched in metaphors...and it practically takes a degree to figure out. I myself have received many, many hundreds of rejection letters, so I can speak with some authority when I say that rejections are all very similar. You'll see the same vague phrases over and over, and it's easy for authors to make themselves crazy staring again and again at those words. Stop staring. It's time to decipher those polite phrases, and figure out what agents actually mean when they say what they say.  Form Rejections Just about every author has received form rejection letters. These are generic slips of paper or ema...