#5OnFri: Five Ways to Create a Likeable Anti-Hero

Give me a complicated anti-hero over a classic “good guy” any day! I love reading about anti-heroes and I love writing them. Of course, using an anti-hero as a protagonist is tricky and risky. Even the edgiest, darkest protagonists have to be likable, or the reader will put the book down. In Destruction the protagonist is man… Read more »

Episode 26: Write Your Book This Year

Hello and thank you for joining me at DIY MFA Radio! Today I want to talk about what you need to know to write your book in 2015. We’ll discuss three myths about being a writer, as well as the the formula for rocking your writing this year. I’ll also share with you a tool that changed… Read more »

Be Part of This Vibrant Community

The thing that writers most often say they love about DIY MFA 101 is the vibrant community. And I have to say that this is probably my favorite aspect of the class as well. Writers who join DIY MFA 101 are dedicated and independent, but also quick to share ideas and give each other support. It’s a combination… Read more »

7 Basics of a Writing Education

Random fact: whenever I go out to write, I carry with me a few essentials. These include an unlined notebook, a fountain pen, and an unsharpened pencil. Why the latter? you may be wondering. The unsharpened pencil symbolizes untapped potential, all the endless possibilities and stories yet to be written. Now with a new session of… Read more »

The Top Three Benefits of Writing Flash Fiction

If novel writing is like a stair climber, then flash fiction is like free weights. You don’t really have to do it, but it sure would help to build your strength. Writing flash fiction teaches you to fine-tune your writing, whittling away at chunks of exposition that just aren’t necessary. It makes your writing lean… Read more »

DIY MFA Style Guide and Sample Post

The purpose of this private sample post / style guide is to give us an accurate view of how DIY MFA website styling looks “in action” in a typical post. Image is a place-holder, as is subsequent paragraph text. The purpose of this text is to show you that we generally prefer to have an… Read more »

Episode 25: Get Motivated and Get Writing

Hello and thank you for joining us today! I’m so glad you’re here. Today, I wanted to give a shout-out to Tobias, who wrote in with a question that inspired today’s episode, Get Motivated and Get Writing. In fact, this got me thinking that If you have questions you’d like to hear answered on DIY… Read more »

Anatomy of a Kick A$$ Query Letter

Art is fire plus algebra. – Jorge Luis Borges Query letters are strange and intimidating beasts.  They are the much obsessed, much abused, much scorned part of the marketing process.  Essentially they are like movie trailers for your book; they create the urge to see more.  Somehow, by some feat of magic, you are forced… Read more »

#5OnFri: Five Books to Prepare for the Zombie Apocalypse

Happy Friday everyone! Most of the country is currently being pummeled with snow and freezing cold temperatures. We are also in an arctic freeze of television, in that terrible limbo in-between the first and second half of most TV show seasons. And I don’t know about any of you, but one show that I’m really ready to premier again… Read more »