Feel the Fear

Dara — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 07:10:00 +0000

We can learn a lot from horror writers. And by horror, I don’t only mean the shockingly gory or grotesque, but rather the quiet stuff too: dread, unease, the feeling that something isn’t quite right. Horror writers make us shiver. They make us gasp. They play upon our emotions with clever mastery, but most of all, they heighten our senses. They force us to pay attention. That’s a skill you can use in your own work, no matter what genre. Specific beats generic Over the years, I’ve learned that nothing is neutral in storytelling, and one secret to powerful storytelling is specificity. Sure, generic can sell, but specific gets remembered. For example, the ghost story. What is a ghost story? If you quickly said, “A story with a ghost,” I’d ask: what kind? Is it scary? Funny? Tragic? Puzzling? Does a ghost story have to have a ghost? (yes think about that). Newer writers tend to fall into the bog of generalities thinking a ghost story is one thing. But master storytellers know it can be many things, and they make theirs specific by focusing on emotion. And one of the best emotions to help your story come alive is fear. Walk toward it Most times when we feel fear, we want to look away. For this practice, I’m asking you to do the opposite: walk towards the feeling and turn it over in your hands. Don’t look away. Think about that long, empty corridor. The furnace groaning somewhere below. The attic at your great-aunt’s house where you stayed every holiday, always too hot, with that dark corner where you heard strange scratching inside the walls. Too big to be a mouse, but what could it be? You don’t have to write horror to use fear as material. Worry, dread, unease, and tension all sharpen your attention. And what you feel, you can make your reader feel too. The way to do that is to stay with the fear and study it: How does it smell? How does it feel? What does it taste like? What does it look like? What are the sounds? Use all five senses Newer writers, especially, tend to forget the sensory details of life. They’ll focus on sight, as most of us do, and possibly sound. But they forget taste, touch, and smell. Does fear have a taste? A smell? A texture? Can you make it particular? That’s the most exciting part. When you return to an unsettling memory, you may find it carried sensations you never noticed. Maybe the sound was something that others would find innocuous, like dried leaves skirting along a stone path pushed by a light autumn breeze. But for you, the sound brings dread, because it reminds you of the scratching inside the walls… That’s the lesson. The thing that makes your heart start to race isn’t a reason to look away. It’s a reason to look even closer. The good stuff often hides on the other side of fear, and it may be what makes your story come alive, what makes it more human than it otherwise would be. This isn’t about being brave. It’s about being more attentive, more attuned, more aware. Observation is key to writing something that pulls readers in and hold them there. Now it’s your turn Choose a moment when you felt afraid. It could be from childhood, your teens, or last month. Remember it in sensory detail. What did it sound like? What did it smell like? How did it feel in your body? Write that down. What do you notice? What did the fear sharpen? Or take a fear you carry now (of not being good enough, of being exposed as a fraud, of not being smart enough) and give it to a character or a place. Yes, places have personalities. Better yet, let that fear carry you through the story you’ve been too intimidated to write, the one that makes you more aware of your dog scratching her ear or the cloyingly sweet smell of the dish soap you bought. You don’t have to share what you write. It’s just practice, one more tool for your toolbox. And don’t worry about whether the story or scene is good or bad. That doesn’t matter. Feeling something does. So I encourage you to feel boldly and put that feeling into your work. You might be surprised by how alive it becomes. shadow of hand image copyright © Liana S/ Unsplash

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Name Your Ghosts

Dara — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 22:02:51 +0000

October always feels like the right time to talk about ghosts. Most writers have a few ghosts haunting them and I find the best way to deal with them is to call them by name. Let’s go through a few: There’s The Ghost of the Constant Critic, who reads over your shoulder, rolls its eyes and groans. There’s The Ghost of Someone Already Said It Better Than You Ever Could, you’ll usually find this ghost wandering through libraries and bookstores looking very self-satisfied. There’s The Ghost of Unfinished Drafts, this one terrifies a lot of newer writers as it drags its chains through a folder left unopened since spring. There’s the Ghost of the Rejected Work, it likes to giggle and remind you that you’re not as great as you think you are. All of these ghosts (and there are plenty of others) tend to be loud, insistent and excellent at making you feel small, unworthy, unimportant. If you let them. I once had The Ghost of the Prominent Literary Agent Who Told Me I Couldn’t Write. I not only named that ghost, I exorcised it. How? I wrote it out of existence. You can too—one story, poem, sentence at a time. Happy ghost hunting. Ghost image © Htc_Erl/pixabay

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Enough is…

Dara — Tue, 06 Oct 2026 23:41:34 +0000

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September 2026 Book Recommendation

Dara — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 22:21:08 +0000

Okay, first, let me get this out of the way. Although my September book recommendation is called How to Write One Song by Jeff Tweedy, it’s not a book about songwriting, it’s a book about the creative process. A book that will help you get pass what tends to get in the way of a lot of writers —overthinking. Jeff Tweedy is an American musician, songwriter, author and record producer, but in this book he’s a teacher with one important lesson: How to create with freedom and joy. With a premise like that, I couldn’t resist. Here are three takeaways: 1) Lower the stakes The title gives away the secret: How to write ONE song. Not a great song, or a good song, just one simple song. Tweedy helps take the pressure off (worrying whether the work is good or bad, publishable or not) and gets you to the first draft. This is where many writers stumble, they think about unnecessary things or look too far ahead. Don’t focus on a career or the next chapter —focus on that one scene, one paragraph, or even one sentence. Creating something from nothing is not only fun, it’s a powerful place to be. 2) Don’t confuse ‘being’ with ‘doing’ “Being something isn’t real in the same way that doing something can be real.” This cuts into the heart of the whole book. Tweedy doesn’t want you to BE a ‘songwriter’ he wants you to WRITE a song. It’s something I’ve repeated more than once, the verb (writing) is more important than the noun (writer). It’s dangerous to focus on what you want to BE rather than what you want to DO. Your days are made up of choices, of tiny actions: Do you write that chapter? That scene? Or do you let those distracting thoughts of what a ‘true writer’ is get in your way? As Ray Bradbury said, “Don’t think!” 3) Short circuit your critical voice Word ladders, list exercises, free-association, Tweedy offers these and a lot of other exercises to help people create word/imagery combinations they’d never consider while trying to be brilliant. These deceptively simple exercises help remove the original meaning of words and generate new ones. For example, by drafting 10 adjectives to describe outer space ( such as circular, cold, silent) and pairing them with ten random nouns ( such as summer, kiss, lawn) Tweedy came up with pairings like: a circular summer a cold kiss a silent lawn In the book he took all ten pairings and crafted a poem (not a perfect one, not a great one, just a poem) in fifteen minutes. Reviewing his work he found some imagery he’d been looking for that he could put into a song he’d been working on. I’d say that’s a productive fifteen minutes. Fiction writers can do the same. Poems are great, but also consider generating scenes from random object/ setting/ emotion combinations or write dialogue that starts from something you read on the back of a food package. Here are two examples I got from items in my cupboard: Let’s date (found on the back of a bag of date sugar) Talk about a powerhouse! (found on the back of a packet of chia seeds) There’s no right or wrong. You pass if you try, you fail if you don’t. It’s that simple. How to Write One Song wants to remind you that you’re smarter and more creative than you think. Give yourself the chance to prove it. Get your copy – Retailer link Bookshop.org Get your copy – Public library link https://search.worldcat.org/

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The D.R.O.P Gut Check: A Strategy for Spotting Scams

Dara — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 07:22:00 +0000

This was first published on my Patreon page, but I thought you should see it too. Typo-filled emails with false urgency used to be the tell-tale hallmark of a scammer, but now AI makes every pitch look professional. I created an acroymn to help writers (you) think about scams and scammers in a different way. Things have changed and your methods of detection have to change too. D.R.O.P is a gut-check for writers to use before they sign, pay, or share their work. D — Don’t be in a hurry In the past, scammers used scarcity: “sign by tonight or lose this offer,” “only 4 spots left in this anthology.” The urgency was a way to get writers to act fast! Now, the scarcity trick comes with a cousin—being discovered, which causes a lot of writers to lower their guard. You get a DM on TikTok or a response to something you posted online. “I found your writing and want to option it for a series.” “I love your latest book, it deserves a larger audience,” “I’d love to showcase your latest release on my podcast (in my book club).” The cold-email pitch has been replaced with a personal entreaty—it sounds so real, so human. But, it probably isn’t. And even if it is…Real opportunities can wait a few days, real interest can survive a week of silence. If someone found you and it’s genuine, they’ll still want you next week…even next month. People who really want to work with you will give you the time you need. You’ll get more than one chance. R — Research twice Due diligence used to look like this: search the agent, contest name or publisher alongside the word “scam” or “complaints” and see the results. You could check watchdog sites like Writer Beware or the ALLi Watchdog list. Those days are gone. Nowadays, it’s possible that nice-looking website isn’t real. Or—worse—the literary agent, the publisher, the movie producer is real with a public track record you can verify BUT they’re not the ones reaching out to you. Someone else is. It’s now your job to check twice. One as a cursory check; one as a deeper dive. Make sure who (or what) is actually reaching out to you. Checking for the use of a free email address is fine to begin, but look closer. Chose your own measuring system, don’t follow the leads the person reaching out to you gives: “If you have any questions you can contact my assistant,” or “I’ll get our production manager to discuss this with you,” or “This is an author who’s used our services, she’ll answer any questions.” Do your own digging. Check sites out for yourself, contact the person at a different address. Yes, this will take time, refer back to point one —don’t be in a hurry. O— Own your rights Anything in a contract that says: “all rights,” “in perpetuity,” or “all future works,” are a reason to run BUT you can’t stop there. Newer (sneakier) traps that sound writer-friendly are showing up in contracts. Here are two examples: (1) reversion-of-rights clauses with a sales threshold set so low the book basically never reverts to you. (2) broad language, sometimes buried in “derivative work” clauses, granting the publisher rights to use your work in ways you hadn’t considered. Read every contract, slowly. I mean every one. Whether you’re entering a contest, distributing your work on a platform, hiring an interior designer for your manuscript, signing with a small, medium, big, hybrid publisher—anything!—take time to read every contract clause. Know about what you are exchanging, what rights you are licensing (not selling!). Sneaky scammers prey on your innocence. (Side note: I’ve heard stories of cover artists, editors and interior book designers trying to convince writers they had partial ownership of their manuscript—fortunately, you know better, right?). Take time to understand (refer to the top) what rights they are asking for, never sign away more than necessary and know exactly what you’re giving up before you sign. P — Pay for a service, not a promise Coined by the American author James D Macdonald, Yog’s Law, became the golden rule of publishing: “money should flow to the writer,” not away from them in the form of fees. Legitimate agents used to work on commission after a sale; real publishers didn’t charge “production fees” or “marketing fees” to represent or publish a writer. However, ethic changes within the literary agent field and the rise of indie and hybrid publishing has changed these dynamics, confusing many writers. I want to try to clear up that confusion. The new reality is about who you’re paying and what you’re paying for. Think of it as a simple equation: specific need (hiring/choosing someone) + specific deliverable (something you can point to) = desirable outcome. In practical terms it looks like this: Hiring a cover designer, a freelance copyeditor, or an ad manager can get you a cover file, an edited manuscript or a completed ad campaign. That’s legitimate. However, if someone who is supposed to profit from selling your work (agent, publisher, literary scout) contacts you and nudges you to their “recommended editing/marketing service”, or tells you about a vague promise (“guaranteed bestseller campaign”) rather than a concrete deliverable, think again. Here’s a two-part test to apply whenever you’re in doubt: 1. Did I choose this vendor? Did they come to me? or Was I steered to them? Hiring your own copyeditor = fine. An agent saying “I’ll represent you once you pay my in-house editor $1,500” = red flag, especially if they get a cut. 2. Am I paying for something specific, or for access/hope? This is where emotions can get you into trouble. Pay for something definite—falsifiable. A defined edit, cover, or ad run (with measurable metrics not hype)= fine. Paying to be “considered,” “published,” “prioritized,” or “chosen” = red flag. So, back to Yog’s Law, money should flow toward the writer from sales. The scam isn’t the payment, it’s disguising a promise as a professional service. And that’s it. Use the D.R.O.P gut check and you’ll be on your way to the fulfilling writing career you deserve. I created a poster you can print out to help you remember. Click here The D.R.O.P Gut Check © 2026 Dara Girard

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Art is to console…

Dara — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 22:09:20 +0000

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The Publishing News Roundup That Skips the Noise — Curated Weekly

Dara — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 07:00:00 +0000

It’s time to come clean. As a fiction writer it might strike people as odd how much I enjoy reading nonfiction (you can see some of my recommendations here ). And yes, before you ask, of course I read fiction, that’s a given. But over the past twenty-plus years I’ve developed a habit that’s probably a little unhinged: I read publishing and related industry news for fun. Scam alerts, copyright fights, contract changes, market shifts—I’ve read them all (yes for fun!) and now I’m ready to turn my habit…um hobby into something useful. I’ve created a weekly roundup of useful industry news for anyone who wants to understand the world of books and the business of being a writer. Who is it for? If you’re a writer who wants to stay in the know without endlessly scrolling, this weekly roundup will provide a shortcut to useful links, scam warnings, resources, and more so you can focus your energy elsewhere. If you’re a reader, this is your chance to see the industry and people behind the books and stories you love. And if you’re just a curious person who loves knowing what’s going on in an industry that can seem mystical, well then we’re clearly spirit twins so welcome. What will you get? Weekly curated news that’s not limited to publishing either: music, comics, copyright and legal news, industry shifts, if it’s relevant to writers, I’m sharing it. If you only want a taste, there’s a free tier and a deeper tier if you want every link plus a monthly deep dive into a topic worth understanding in full. Why I’m doing this? Because I finally came to my senses and realized that my strange hobby might prove useful and I discovered a good way to share it with anyone who might want to learn a thing or two without being overwhelmed. If this sounds like you, I hope you’ll check it out here.

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Let everything…

Dara — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 19:26:36 +0000

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August 2026 Book Recommendation

Dara — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 18:42:33 +0000

Quitting as a strategy. That’s the basic premise of my August 2026 recommendation The Dip by Seth Godin. Godin is an entrepreneur, daily blogger, bestselling author and speaker who knows about modern marketing. And in this new world we’re all marketers, but that’s another book entirely. For now let’s focus on The Dip. Before we go any further let’s define what ‘a dip’ is. A dip is … ‘any rough patch you have to get through before achieving your big goal…if in fact you’re chasing the right goal.’ A short simple sentence that packs a lot of insight just like this book. You can read it quickly, but I’d suggest you read it more than once to understand the concepts fully. Here are three key takeaways that I’m structuring under three different subheadings (mindset, marketing and momentum) because The Dip expands on all three. MINDSET The Dip doesn’t appear when you think it does. Many new writers believe ‘getting published’ is the finish line. Like most things marketed to the general public, it’s seen as the end of the movie. The hard work is rewarded with a record label, movie contract, book deal. Unfortunately, in reality getting published is the entrance to the real Dip. This is what it looks like: The happy author is excited to see their debut novel sent out into the world and then it sells modestly or poorly and the writer is shocked by a what truly lies ahead: a longer, quieter Dip of building a readership across books two, three, four while each book sells at different degrees and the writer’s income becomes unstable. This is where most writing careers flounder (and die). Not due to lack of talent, but because the writer expected the Dip to be over, they thought they had arrived when in reality, the Dip was just beginning. Look at long term careers and you’ll see the shadows of the Dips (because there are many) and you’ll see those who pushed through and those who were blindsided. MARKETING Define what ‘best in the world’ means. Godin offers an innovative marketing strategy. It coincides with finding the smallest viable audience. You can become ‘best in the world’ if you narrowly define what ‘world’ is. For example, the best florist in a three-block radius, not the best florist on Earth. For writers this means moving away from being a good writer in a general sense to becoming specific. The time of the general, competent writer is coming to an end (sorry but the oversaturated, undifferentiated book market is where AI will flourish). However, writers who develop a specific intersection—literary horror set in Northeastern coastal towns, comic fantasy with climate undertones—will survive and thrive. The more narrow and truer the niche you choose, the faster you become the reference point. A real life example is author Beverly Jenkins who became the best in the world at writing African American historical romance. She created the world and ruled it. MOMENTUM Know when (and what) to quit. Writers who don’t last tend to follow two patterns when a bad year hits—they either quit everything (panic quitting) or refuse to quit anything and get spread too thin to do the one or two things that would help them get through the Dip (confusing sunk costs for perseverance). Distinguishing the cul-de-sac from the Dip is both a craft and business skill. Long term career writers who last learn when to walk away from a project (a tool, a tactic, etc…). They can tell the difference between a project that isn’t a Dip (temporary) but is actually a plateau (structural) and redirect their energy elsewhere in service of their main goal. Writers who don’t last long can’t see when a decision won’t pay off. They ‘push through’ misunderstanding ‘never quit’ doesn’t apply when a cul-de-sac (let alone a cliff) is attached. I hope you’ll take a chance to look over this short book and let it help you discover The Dips, Cul-de-sacs and Cliffs on your journey. They are always ahead of you, the savvy writer takes the time to learn and figure out how to spot them. Get your copy – Retailer link Bookshop.org Get your copy – Public library link https://search.worldcat.org/

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How Well Do You Know the Wolff Brothers?

Dara — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 06:00:00 +0000

I built a quiz: How Well Do You Know the Wolff Brothers? Answer nine questions about Damian, Lucas, and Ian ( their fears, their quirks, who barely talks, who secretly reads romance novels) and find out where you place: 🖤 Part of the Family(80–100%) — you know these brothers better than they know themselves 🤝 Associate (50–70%) — close, but you might want a refresher 📖 Not Quite Clearance Yet — time to revisit Seeing Red To take the quiz click HERE Have fun!

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