Jade Varden Official Blog

How many times have you been asked to study "The Raven" in school? Have you ever heard of the Tell-Tale Heart ? Even if you're not an avid reader of his works, chances are extremely high that you've heard the name Edgar Allan Poe at some point in your life. He's still being referenced in popular culture today, and he's credited with inventing the detective fiction drama that's served so many writers so well.  He died alone, broke and didn't receive much recognition for his work during his own lifetime. One may even infer that at the time of his death, by many perspectives Poe was something of a failure as a writer.  Starving Editor His life, sadly, played out a little like something out of one of his own grim tales. After a brief military career, during which Poe asked to be discharged early, he moved to a city that has been a mecca for writers for centuries: New York.  Poe had published a book of poetry while in the army...

You know that guy who shows up to all your parties, even when he's not invited? His name is Al -- and if you're not being careful, he might be attaching himself to all kinds of words inside your ebooks. When Al shows up to the party, you'd better make sure he's attached to the right word in the right way...because he's got a terrible habit of showing up where he's not needed. Al and Other Words By now, you might be wondering who Al is. He's the guy that shows up in words like altogether, already and  alright. Sometimes, Al gets together with a word and everything's great. Sometimes, however, he's not actually creating a new word -- he's making a mess of your writing.  All Together/Altogether By themselves, all and together are two separate words...so it follows that when you use them as a pair, they form a unique phrase that is more than the sum of its parts. All together just means as a group , like if you shout "Everyon...

Death has arrived! To help you get caught up on the story so far, I'm giving away Justice and The Tower all month long free . Visit my Smashwords page to download both books in the format of your choice. Enter the coupon code SSWIN to get a 100% price reduction.  About Justice When you build an entire life on a foundation of lies, it only takes one truth for the whole thing to come crashing down. I never invited the truth in. I never went searching for it. I never had any reason to suspect that the two people I loved most were dishonest with me every second of every day. I made one bad decision, and in a single day my entire world changed. If I’m ever going to discover the truth about myself and my parents, I have to trace all the lies back to their source. I have to try to find the truth that they’re hiding. The more I discover about myself, and my past, the more I realize that lies really are better than the truth. But now that I know the lies a...

It's July 1, and that can only mean one thing -- Death has been released! Get the book at Amazon and Smashwords , and get all the new lies.

Anne of Green Gables is one of the most beloved children's books of all time, and if you haven't read it (or any of the successive books in the series), you've probably seen some pieces of the four films it inspired. Lots of girls identify with Anne, who reads books and hates her hair, but lots of fans are surprised when they start comparing the book to the film. The Book The original book, and the first in what would become an iconic series, was published way back in 1908. It remains extremely popular; even today, young girls show up in Canada with their hair dyed red and styled in pigtails. They come to walk the same paths that Anne took and to see the iconic Green Gables farmhouse, located in Cavendish. Anne Shirley is an orphan girl who has been tossed to and fro for much of her life. The bane of her existence is her hair, which is as red as carrots, though the matching freckles on her face are cause for some concern as well. A pair of elder siblings, M...

How long do you stare at your screen before you start typing away at your latest story? How much time do you spend wrestling with your scenes to get them just so? I always know what I'm going to write next, thanks to a little trick I call pre-writing. It's one of my secrets, and I've shared the entire method in my latest guest post.  Visit Annalisa Crawford's blog to read all about it , and make sure you take a look at the rest of her site while you're there -- she's one of my favorite bloggers!

The world moves fast. Email can be transmitted in moments, practically everything has a drive-through window, and the moment you hit "send" on Facebook your words are out there for everyone to see -- you might even get a comment or a "like" within seconds. Sometimes, it's necessary to use abbreviations (after all, Twitter only gives you 140 characters). But you should think twice, and edit heavily, before you put them in your book. Don't let abbreviations ruin your work. Everyday Abbreviations Common abbreviations crop up in writing all the time. They're included in online articles, they're used on blogs, they're great for Twitter and other social media sites where space is limited. It's so easy to use them, you might never even think about it. But you should, because even everyday abbreviations should be absolutely left out of your books.  Have you ever actually heard someone use one in conversation? When was the last time y...

Some stories are told and re-told in hundreds of different ways; they're being constantly updated for new generations. Most fairy tales are hundreds of years old, but you can walk into any bookstore and find new versions of those old stories, written with today's kids in mind. Most people can probably name at least a dozen different film adaptations of Cinderella , one of the most popular fairy tales of all time. But some writers find ways to take even the oldest and most popular stories and flip them completely upside-down. The most convenient vehicle for re-telling an ancient story in a brand-new way is to simply change the point of view. The Original  Cinderella was first published not by the Brothers Grimm, but by a Frenchman named Charles Perrault. Rumor has it that one castle in France lays claims to being the inspiration for the fairy tale castle in the story, but in truth Cinderella's story is ancient. A story originating in Greece, circa 1st century BC, i...