Jade Varden Official Blog

Virginia Woolf was the product of a broken home, and was raised with her stepfather and several step-siblings. From an early age, she was highly emotional and had trouble coping with the various tragedies that life tossed her way. But Virginia found a way to escape the pain of her mother's untimely death, the tragic shock of her sister's unexpected death and the other sad events that occurred in her life: books. Se was given full access to her father's library, and here she fell in love with the written word. Here, she became Virginia Woolf, the author. Being Blue Like lots of authors, Virginia Woolf started publishing her own books. She and her husband purchased a printing press, mostly as a hobby, and pretty soon they turned it into a business. She published several novels using the press. Virginia Woolf was a prolific writer. She wrote several books in the span of a few short years, and received recognition in her own time as a talented woman of letters. It s...

Jade's Blog has come a long way since we first started in 2011. Together, we've explored punctuation rules and grammar tricks, literary techniques and self promotion. Several guest authors and friends of the blog have stopped by to offer their insights and share their stories. And now, it's time to celebrate all of that -- by giving some free stuff away. 1,000th Thanks for visiting the blog, whether this is your first visit or your 1,000th. Jade's blog has always been a place for indie and self-published authors, and hopefully it will be here for another 1,000 posts. But without reading, there would be no writing. So to celebrate today's milestone, let's give lots of books and other stuff away! The Deck of Lies                                               ...

It's not always easy to remember all the different rules of grammar, and that's why you need this throwback Writing 101 post about further and farther.  Find out how to tell the difference between them, and you'll always use further and farther the right way.

It’s a pretty classic story: the underdog team claws and fights their way into the big competition, only to face off against a much more powerful opponent. Against all odds, the underdogs pull together and carry the day. Unless they don’t. Sometimes, the story ends with the unexpected outcome instead. The hero doesn’t always have to win, but if you don’t write the unexpected outcome the right way you aren’t going to win, either. When the Hero Loses Look, good guys don’t always finish first in life. The inspiring underdogs don’t always win, the hero doesn’t always defeat the villain, and sometimes the unexpected outcome is the result. But when the unexpected happens and the hero loses, you've got to be really careful about how you end the story.

Are you a good writer, or a bad one? I’m pretty sure that every single author and would-be author has asked themselves this question. If only the answer was as simple as that. But you’re still going to want to know the answer, and you’ll find yourself searching for validation everywhere. So when you want to test your own storytelling skills, who should you trust to tell you the truth? To Tell the Truth Should you keep on climbing that mountain, or throw in the towel? Are you good with dialogue, bad with your narrative, terrible at descriptions or sloppy in your research? You’re going to want to know all of these things at some point, and maybe you’ll want to know them more than once. So who can you turn to for the answer that’s honest? In the literary world, there are many opinions you may want to trust. Should you?

For some reason, a certain amount of eccentricity is tolerated in artistic people. It’s weird and gross that Vincent Van Gogh cut off his ear, but he was an artist. You know how artists are. Some authors famously did really weird things, and people just accept it. But being an author can potentially drive you crazy...as in, actually insane. After all, I’m pretty sure it’s happened before… The Crazy Ones If you believe that you must be mad in order to be a genius, there are some authors who were most certainly geniuses. Were they mad to begin with, or did being authors drive them insane ?

The whole world is reading ebooks these days, but plenty of people still love the feel of a print book. It's really easy to turn your self-published books into ebooks, and this week's TBT Writing 101 tip will tell you exactly how to do it...for free.  Putting your book in print is a bit of a procedure, but it's not difficult. Once you're in print, you can open yourself up to a lot more readers (and convince your family members that yes, you did write a book). Get yourself at least one copy of your own book, and put it on a shelf where you can show it off. Maybe one day, you'll fill the shelf with books.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it, but I’m from the south. We talk a little bit slower here, because there’s no rush. Maybe we forget a g, every now and then. People in the south speak with an accent, but so do people from Boston -- whom I cannot understand even when I really try. Writing an accent is really an art form, and it’s really easy to do badly. Like the Way She Talks “Ow, eez, ye-ooa san, is e? Wal. fewd dan y' d-ooty bawmz a mather should, eed now bettern to spawl a pore gel's flahrzn than ran awy athaht pyin. Will ye-oo py me f'them?” No, I didn’t just accidentally sit on my keyboard to create that mess. That’s actual text from an actual book . It’s an accent. Cockney, to be specific. Can you tell what it says? Because I can.