One thing every writer wants is the opportunity to improve their craft, to hone their skills, and create the most dazzling prose possible. The Writer's Tune-up Manual is just what you need. Maybe you've been away from the game for a while, struggle with a certain aspect of writing, or perhaps you just want to put your skills up on the rack and give them a good tuning. Filled with 35 targeted exercises, The Writer's Tune-up Manual will help you do all these things by expanding your writing savvy in five specific areas: Character Development, Dialogue, Point of View, Description and Setting, and Plot. NEW, REVISED, AND EXPANDED! Enjoy SIX new bonus exercises and an offer to get Craig's new book, The Busy Writer, absolutely free! The exercises in The Writer's Tune-up Manual are more than just writing prompts; you can find those anywhere. No, The Manual gives you a real opportunity to flex your literary muscles by laying out detailed, often difficult assignments. Nobody said that becoming the best writer you can would be easy, so roll up your sleeves, flex your fingers, and get ready to take your writing to a whole new level!

Tune Up Your Business guides you through the beginning stages of holding and financing your company to hiring and running your company to maximize your profits.

"Denise Levertov fulfills the eternal mission of the true Poet: to be a receptacle of Divine Grace and a 'spendor of that Grace to humanity.'" --World Literature Today

This volume of fiction and essays includes three short stories, articles on the craft of poetry focusing on the musical function of the line, and a discussion of the relation of poets to politics.

What your reader wants; Ten principles of clear writing; Causes and cures.

In his widely read guides How to Write a Damn Good Novel and How to Write a Damn Good Novel II: Advanced Techniques, popular novelist and fiction-writing coach James N. Frey showed tens of thousands of writers how--starting with rounded, living, breathing, dynamic characters--to structure a novel that sustains its tension and development and ends in a satisfying, dramatic climax. Now, in The Key, Frey takes his no-nonsense, "Damn Good" approach and applies it to Joseph Campbell's insights into the universal structure of myths. Myths, says Frey, are the basis of all storytelling, and their structures and motifs are just as powerful for contemporary writers as they were for Homer. Frey begins with the qualities found in mythic heros--ancient and modern--such as the hero's special talent, his or her wound, status as an "outlaw," and so on. He then demonstrates how the hero is initiated--sent on a mission, forced to learn the new rules, tested, and suffers a symbolic death and rebirth--before he or she can return home. Using dozens of classical and contemporary novels and films as models, Frey shows how these motifs and forms work their powerful magic on the reader's imagination. The Key is designed as a practical step-by-step guide for fiction writers and screen writers who want to shape their own ideas into a mythic story.