by Ann H. Gabhart “I will go to my grave in a state of abject endless fascination that we all have the capacity to become emotionally involved with a personality that doesn’t exist.” (Berkeley Breathed) As a writer I have become emotionally involved with many characters that only came into existence because I imagined them and set them down on a …
Celebrate Independence Day!
By Carrie Stuart Parks Happy 4th of July! My new book, Formula of Deception, will have released yesterday. In it are some historical facts that I researched and I’d like to reflect on as we celebrate our independence. A theme of my writing is to show how events of the past impact the present. Although I may start my research …
The Writing Life
by Ane Mulligan My latest WIP is either going to kill me or be my opus. My main character did not reveal as much as I prefer before I started writing the story. I knew her home was steeped in secrets; I knew those. Or so I thought. But she withheld a few to spring on me at unsuspected times. …
Resolving Tension
By Sarah Hamaker As writers, we work with tension all the time—without tension, our stories would sag and our heroes and heroines would have very boring relationships. But this blog is about the tension we experience between what we want to work on and what we have to work on. For many of us, writing is not our fulltime job. …
Springing into the Next Story
by Jan Drexler Spring is here, and it’s time to start my next book! With this new beginning, I’ve already spent hours of preparation. I’ve cultivated the bed of ideas, throwing out stones and stray roots. I’ve poured over research materials as if they were seed catalogs, each with their own versions of the standard offerings. I’ve studied maps, terrain, …
Tips for Fighting the Dreaded Writer’s Block
By Amy Clipston Through the years I’ve found that my book projects fall into two categories—they either write themselves or writing them feels like having my teeth drilled. In other words, the characters either tell me the story or I push them through the story as if they were dead weight. My book Room on the Porch Swing, which releases …
What About Book Reviews?
By Nora St. Laurent A book review is a thoughtful discussion of a book’s content, style, strengths, value, limitations and recommendation for it (or not) for possible readers of a genre and/or subject. Here is an example of a possible compact review, “this book is a wild ride of adventure, romance and suspense. It would work well for a book …
Observations from a Writer
By Denise Hunter Most writers are observers by nature, aren’t we? We observe ourselves, we observe others, then we use what we observe in our writing. Like the other day. I was driving down the road alone and had to brake suddenly for a cat. What was my response to potential disaster? (Yeah, some people don’t consider a dead cat …
How to Write a Novel
By Henry McLaughlin When I’m introduced as a writer to a group of non-writers I get a wide range of reactions. Some look at me as if I’m from another planet. Others back away as if they might catch a strange disease. In my early days, one person asserted I couldn’t be a writer because I wasn’t published yet. Made …
Choose a Setting You Love
By H.L. Wegley Thirty-eight years ago, my wife and I and our three kids boxed up enough supplies for a week and headed for Lake Chelan in Central Washington, a glacier-fed lake, fifty-five miles long, nestled snugly between Cascade Mountain peaks. We rode the big boat, Lady of the Lake, and planned to camp in the wilderness, free from the …