I love regularly reading tips and advice articles in certain subjects — particularly writing and publishing. I don’t always need the information right then, but I know that it’ll eventually come in handy. Or at least, I hope it will.
I know there are a lot of other people out there who feel the same way I do, but sometimes it can be difficult to find every useful advice article that’s out there. So I thought I’d bring you a few. Here are the tips and advice articles that jumped out at me the most over the past week.
1. Don’t Forget to Write a Different Book Next Time, from Books and Such: Have you ever been super excited about your favourite author’s new book? And then you read it and found yourself severely disappointed because it’s so similar to their last book? You’ll definitely want to make sure you don’t make the same mistake in your own writing. Excerpt: “She claimed that her readers never noticed the look-alike heroes. She chose to continue in this “rut” purposefully because Harrison’s a good-looking guy and none of her readers had ever written to her to complain.”
2. Simple Gun Tips for Writers, from The Writing Cafe: As someone who isn’t around guns often (or at all, to be honest), I don’t know the details of how they look or feel. Which is why I found this overview so helpful. Excerpt: “I’m not anywhere near a gun specialist, but I’ve been raised around them and I know enough that I can tell you most things on tv you see guns doing is bullshit.”
3. Top 10 Mistakes Authors Make When Writing Legal Scenes, from Live Write Thrive: Again, I don’t have a whole lot of experience with court rooms. And while they aren’t often involved in my writing, I’m sure this extra bit of knowledge will come in handy one day. Excerpt: “I’ve been writing legal thrillers for ten years and litigating for over twenty. As you might guess, that means I get lots of questions about how to write legal scenes.”
Miranda Burski 
Great advice on writing a different book. It’s made me sit here and wonder if I’ve done that- but I don’t think I have, so shew! 😉 And yeah, not alot of knowledge about guns or, especially, legal scenes, here. Ok, legal scenes, nada!
The same question crossed my mind after reading that one. And after taking some time to think it over, I think I’m okay, too. But I also think there are probably a couple of similarities between two or three of my characters, so I’m going to have to make sure they’re still different enough that they won’t seem repetitive.