My Blog

J Hopkins

“Like” it or Not, I’m Still Going to Promote my Book, by Jude Hopkins, 4/14/24

If you’re an author published by an independent publisher, you are responsible for most of your book’s promotion and marketing. With the...

J Hopkins

What Most Aspiring Book Writers Really Want is Hubbell's Girl, by Jude Hopkins, 3/24/24

I’ve changed my mind about people’s heartfelt desire to write the book within them. They’ll never do it. And I need to quit encouraging...

J Hopkins

Read First Chapter of My Novel "Babe in the Woods," by Jude Hopkins, 11/4/23

“And she tried to fancy what the flame of a candle is like after the candle is blown out, for she could not remember ever having seen...

J Hopkins

Two Sentence Styles You Might Be Overusing, by Jude Hopkins, 7/18/23

Are you inadvertently boring your readers because of your reliance on mainly two sentence styles? Those styles are the compound sentence...

J Hopkins

Imagination and Mountains, by Jude Hopkins, 6/17/23

In addition to writing my debut novel and several essays, I have always loved writing poetry. Perhaps my favorite poem from among those I...

J Hopkins

Are You Reading To Become a Better Writer? by Jude Hopkins, 2/3/23

Photo by Victoria Rodriguez from Pexels One of the most compelling articles I read last year was titled “on the inability to create...

J Hopkins

Perfect Style: Whether She's Icing a Cupcake or Writing a Sentencing Plea, by Jude Hopkins, 9/11/22

Let’s face it: Martha Stewart makes perfect cupcakes. But that’s not the only thing she’s good at. Until it lost its news value, Martha...

J Hopkins

Is Your Writing As Nuanced as the Colors of a Pigeon’s Feathers? By Jude Hopkins, August 29, 2022

In my last blog, I mentioned “too much” girls, ones who were too loud, too this, too that. And I saluted them for their passion, their...

J Hopkins

My Book, My Cover, My Gosh—It’s Real!, August 12, 2022, by Jude Hopkins

When you’re a writer, the most wonderful feeling is getting your manuscript accepted by a publisher and seeing it take shape as a...

J Hopkins

What are Patterns For? July 16, 2022, by Jude Hopkins

In the children’s story “The Runaway Flying Horse,” a carousel horse tires of the restrictive Merry-Go-Round, longing for the freedom...

J Hopkins

Say "Yes Yes Yes" to the Creative Person Within You, June 30, 2022, by Jude Hopkins

What I love about Kaylin Haught’s poem above, “God says yes to me,” is the message of assurance it gives to girls who question...

J Hopkins

Music for Aches and Angst: Healing YouTube Instrumentals for Women, June 29, 2022, by Jude Hopkins

—Ethereal drone music to make you believe you’re wandering around an exoplanet that, unlike the one you’re on, requires no dusting,...

J Hopkins

“A Ghost of a Chance,” June 2, 2022, by Jude Hopkins

Have you ever been ghosted? I don’t mean have you ever come face to face with a vanishing figure in an abandoned Victorian mansion after...

J Hopkins

The Heart of the Matter, May 23, 2022, by Jude Hopkins

When I read about young people today beset by mental illness in these challenging times, I am so very concerned for them. Certainly,...

J Hopkins

What I’ve Learned from My Modern Love Rejections, May 10, 2022, by Jude Hopkins

A tongue-in-cheek rationalization for my Modern Love rejections, leading me to believe I'm neither modern nor loved!...

J Hopkins

Let Us Now Praise Ex-Boyfriends, May 4, 2022, by Jude Hopkins

I’m here to praise ex-boyfriends. To continue the ironic analogy to the title of James Agee’s book about Depression-era tenant farmers,...

J Hopkins

The Day I Met Paul McCartney (spaghetti is involved), April 23, 2022, by Jude Hopkins

“Paul McCartney is downstairs and will do a quick meet-and-greet with photos, if you hurry.” That’s what I heard one day when I worked...

J Hopkins

Pipe Dream, April 20, 2022, by Jude Hopkins

Here's a remembrance from a time I spent a "big birthday" at a Beverly Hills spa, a day in which I was mostly broke and brokenhearted. I...

J Hopkins

What's Your Writing Style?, April 13, 2022, by Jude Hopkins

What defines your writing style? I rarely revert to Wikipedia for the best definitions, but I do like the simplicity of this: “Beyond the...

J Hopkins

“I Will Always Love You" - Maybe Not, April 10, 2022, by Jude Hopkins

If you’ve ever sent out query letters to agents, you know the pain you feel when you get rejection letters back. It’s similar to the pain...

J Hopkins

Persistence — April 6, 2022, by Jude Hopkins

Persistence. Quite a word. The website etymonline.com tells us that the word originated in the 1540s from the French and Latin, meaning...

J Hopkins

Reading My Poems for National Poetry Month, April 1, 2022, by Jude Hopkins

The wonderful editors at Gyroscope Review gave their published poets a chance to read three poems that had been published anywhere, not...

J Hopkins

Is There a Leopard in Your Life? — March 31, 2022, by Jude Hopkins

What happens if you don’t follow your dreams? Researchers from Cornell University and the New School for Social Research found that...

J Hopkins

Don’t Abandon Your Dream, Part III – March 24, 2022, by Jude Hopkins

Months passed. I published a personal essay in The Los Angeles Times, as well as poems in various journals and was a runner-up in a...

J Hopkins

Don’t Abandon Your Dream, Part II– March 23, 2022, by Jude Hopkins

In another year or so, I exhumed my book proposal and thought it good enough to send to another New York agent. It worked — again....

J Hopkins

Don’t Abandon Your Dream, Part I – March 22, 2022, by Jude Hopkins

One day, long ago, I sat on the floor in my apartment in Tempe, Arizona, surrounded by notes, outlines, and a copy of a well-known novel...

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