Jade Varden Official Blog

Doesn't it seem like every famous author or artist has some dramatic life history? You hear all about how this one struggled with depression and alcoholism, how that one decided to go live in the wild one day, how so-and-so was the daughter of an actress and traveled all over the world. Here's the thing: we can't all have a totally fascinating and interesting life. Some people are, in fact, basically pretty normal: suburban neighborhood, standard high school, part-time summer job working at a fast food joint. So when you hear trite advice like "write what you know," it's perfectly fine for you to roll your eyes. Reality is Boring Not all of us know what it's like to see the hills of Spain lit with the afternoon light (lookin' at you, Ernest Hemingway) or grew up listening to fascinating Civil War stories from people who were actually there (but good for you, Margaret Mitchell). Some authors can only dream of being on a fully-rigged sailing v...

"Tell [her] to stick to her teaching; she can never succeed as a writer." These were the words of James T. Fields, then the editor of The Atlantic magazine. According to legend, the Boston editor wrote to the father of a young, aspiring novelist with these very harsh words. She'd just completed work on her first full-length novel, a monster of a volume containing some autobiographical elements and deep, gut-wrenching tragedy.  The novel in question eventually did get published, and Hollywood has immortalized it in film more than once using some of the city's favorite actresses (including Katharine Hepburn and Elizabeth Taylor). And even if you've never read it, I'm pretty sure you've heard of it. It's called Little Women , and it's considered to be a classic piece of literature. Louisa May Alcott, who famously penned the book while living in Massachusetts, eventually became a writer for The Atlantic magazine. Looks like she sure showed...

I look through Facebook status updates at least once a day, mostly to see what other writers are achieving while I'm wasting time with social media. One writer in particular, whom I can't name, has a habit of posting the amount of words she's managed to get down on paper during the day. She does it every day, and sometimes the numbers sound positively staggering (four digits and above). And she's not alone; lots of writers offer similar updates, word counts and all. All of it got me to thinking, and now I'm wondering if I'm undisciplined. Should I be setting daily goals?  Daily Writing Goals Discipline and motivation are mercurial mistresses, and they can be expensive to keep. Many, many indie authors have to split their time between a paying full-time job and their somewhat-paying writer alter ego. The process of writing itself is exhausting; it takes much longer to write a book than to read one. Editing and re-reading the book can be a tedious chore...

There are certain grammar myths out there that can make even the best writers go bad. English teachers have learned how to strike fear into the hearts of their students, but there's no reason you should be afraid of prepositions. It's time to find out the truth about the proper way to use prepositions in your writing. Prepositions Remember the rule? A preposition is anywhere a mouse can go. This includes words like from , under , to , above , as , into , out , through and on -- to name just a few. Prepositions are one of the most-used elements of the English language...and they're used to invoke terror in the minds of writers everywhere.  It's a commonly-accepted rule of English, and writing in general, that it's simply not okay to end a sentence with a preposition. This rule renders such common expressions as "what's going on?" and "what's up?" inherently flawed, not to mention renders oft-heard phrases like "what is ...

I visited the Hopelessly Devoted Bibliophile blog recently, and shared some of my secrets in a new guest post.  Go read my Confessions to find out how, and where, I hide many little clues in my books that just might help you solve some of the mysteries. There are tons of clues in my upcoming book, Death (Deck of Lies, #3).

Bad writing. Everyone's afraid of it, and everyone's seen it at one time or another. It's always a threat you're going to have to face if you want to write books, and it's always out there lurking inside sentences and paragraphs. But if you want to avoid it, you've got to know exactly how to spot it. In order to keep your work free of bad writing, you need to understand it. What Makes Writing Bad? Saying that a piece of writing is "bad" is really ambiguous, and not at all helpful. Learn how to spot specific elements that make for bad writing, and you'll know exactly how to fix them. Telling a scene . One of the first rules of writing is show, don't tell . I covered this at length in a previous post . Basically, the trick to good writing is to be descriptive. Don't tell me that Sarah walked down the sidewalk, feeling angry . Show me Sarah, angrily kicking rocks out of her path and glaring at the trees as she walks past them. What ...

If you're a regular visitor to the blog, you may notice that my Amazon widget keeps changing (it's on the right side, under my list of followers). The widget shows a smattering of the books I've reviewed here on the blog, but Amazon limits the number of books I'm allowed to include. Because I can't possibly put them all on the list, I've come up with my own system of choosing which books are featured, and for how long. When I add a new review to the blog, unless I don't want to recommend the book it'll be put on the widget right away. But I will start taking books away from the list as I add more to it. Which books will be removed? It's not necessarily based on time. Books I really like will stay on the list, so the longer a book stays on the widget the more I like it! I don't do a rating system on this blog, but if you keep an eye on my widget you'll know which indie books are my favorite and which...aren't so much my favorites.

I probably wouldn't have found this book, or decided to read it, if the author hadn't contacted me through Twitter. Since Subterfuge in Heart met all my review requirements, I decided to go ahead and agree to review it. I'm pleased to say the decision paid off; this is a wonderfully well-written book. When I review it on Amazon, I'll give it five stars -- but it really deserves six.     From the first page, it became clear to me that this book was a cut above the rest. To be perfectly honest, as a writer it made me feel like a bit of a hack. So I decided, quite early, to leave my own literary leanings at the door and look at this book like a reader instead of a writer. It was impossible not to get swept away in the narrative, anyway. Like Charles Dickens, Tobias Troy begins the story with the birth of the protagonist, immediately introducing the reader to a fascinatingly complicated mind. Our hero is a genius, and his storytell...