Don’t Sabotage Yourself

Should have some conference pics tomorrow. 
I didn’t end up getting the writing day yesterday.  My employer needed a last minute rush job.  While I missed my writing day, I did end up witha  great sense of accomplishment last night.   Shoving two days of work into one is difficult and made my right hand ache like crazy, it was [...]

Rewriting a Scene

I’ve been too freaking busy.  There’s another high school game tonight, lunch with friends tomorrow and I’ve yet to find the time to really get the last rewrites done on my book.  I’m enjoying my paying job, but do long to work at the one I was recently informed is only a hobby since I [...]

Short and Sweet

Watched the first episode of Californication.
Thought I’d share a brief character moment.  In the very beginning, we meet Hank and see him driving into a fantastically ornate church.  He’s scruffy looking, smoking and yeah, okay, it’s Duchovny, so he’s pretty damned hot. 
As he walks into the church, he puts his cigarette out in the holy [...]

Research Tip!

I attended the Quartz Mountain Writer’s Retreat last year and learned a lot about worldbuilding and writing from the speaker, Mel Odom.  Funny enough, he shared a small writer’s tip and we were all so intrigued by something so simple–something most of us had not known about–we ended up using up some of his precious [...]

Laptop Tip

Heather brought up how uncomfortable a laptop can be on a person’s lap, so I thought I’d share this great thing I found at Office Depot.  At first, I thought it was priced high for what looks like a thin piece of plastic, but it has turned into the best writing purchase ever.
I have a [...]

Telling and Showing… and Layering

Don’t you just hate it when you enter a contest and the judge tells you that you need to do more showing and less telling but they don’t tell you how?
When I used to judge contests, I always turned their manuscript over or included a whole new blank page using examples from their actual work.  [...]

Exploring Your Inner Voice

Humorous.  Dark.  Vivid.  Lively.  Melancholic. 
It’s quite possible you have a touch of all these styles.  Good.  I certainly believe in being well-rounded when it comes to voice.  However, sometimes nailing your “voice” is tough. 
I struggle with it a lot in my book length manuscripts–struggle to the point where there are days I convince myself that [...]

Research Good. Research Bad.

Sorry for the silence.  I have a plot line that is taking a little more research than I anticipated so I’ve been bogged down trying to get it all done and still get some sort of word count.  Thank goodness I decided to give up my Lone Ranger JANO and extend my personal deadline to [...]

Don’t Let the Murky Bottom Hold You Back

Note: I’ve added a new page at the top called Current Scene FA Pic.  A handy place to check the current photo for writing as well as the deadline.  Yes, I put in a deadline.  Not for pressure– no.  My purpose was to alleviate pressure so you know how long you can let a photo [...]

Where It All Begins

“Great are they who see that thoughts rule the world.”
                                                   Ralph Waldo Emerson
Everything begins and ends with thought.  We think to create, to achieve, to live.  Positive thoughts keep us happy and healthy.  A negative thought can be like a disease that when left alone can spread and eventually destroy.
Writers pull out that blank sheet of paper [...]

Every Day is a Fresh Start

My daughter took this photo of her father watching the sunset.
Who needs snark on Mondays? Not me.

What better way to breathe a spark into your world than with a fresh start. Maybe it’s the spring weather, but I’ve been feeling the simmering warmth of creation somewhere in my middle, sharing my space continuously, popping up [...]