By Christa MacDonald Pain, the emotional sort, is a killer of creativity. It’s hard to get the words out when your heart is breaking. Grief, angst, fear, whatever it is, nothing shuts off the faucet of inspiration like suffering. It’s tough to get motivated to write a light-hearted romance when your heart is broken. It’s equally challenging to write about …
Fall down, get up. Again.
By Davalynn Spencer When we hear that people have experience in a particular field or endeavor, we often equate that experience with success and only success. However, if that were the case, their experience would not be genuine. Experience bleeds. Last month at a multi-author event for the local college, I met a woman who is a licensed pilot. She’s …
Dealing with Ugly Envy
by Donna LH Smith Envy—according to Webster’s, it means feeling of discontent and ill will because of another’s advantages, possessions, etc., resentful disliked of another who has something that one desires. This goes back to Commandment #10: You shall not covet your neighbor’s house…etc. It’s natural to want things for ourselves. When we’re unpublished, we want to be published. When …
Hurricane Harvey and the Pirate: Writing Through Storms
By Kathleen Y’Barbo April 1, 2018 is the book birthday for my swashbuckling historical romance, PIRATE BRIDE. As with traditional births, this book was approximately nine months in the making, give or take. So happy birthday to the book of my heart, the book I whose story people first came to me more than twenty years ago. The book that …
Backups and Miracles
By Rondi Olson My laptop made a grinding noise. I held it up to my co-worker, and asked if she could hear the sound, but before she could answer, the screen went blank. I wasn’t worried, at first. I restarted the computer, hoping that whatever was wrong would fix itself, but instead the grinding resumed, and an error message flashed …
Designing
By Christine Sunderland In the early stages of writing a novel, in the choosing of themes and characters, research must be done to create a grand design. In my novel-in-progress, (working title) Angel Mountain, I have chosen to write about the creation of the world in terms of evolutionary theory and genome mapping. I became intrigued, more and more, with …
Patience is a (Painfully Acquired) Virtue
By Linda Yezak Although my first novel didn’t release until 2011, I’ve been at this business for over twenty years. Learning to write. Learning to edit. Learning to read with an eye toward technique. Always learning. Still learning, even now with several titles and awards under my belt. But my bank account doesn’t reflect the amount of work I’ve put …
The Writer in the Corner
by Chandra Lynn Smith I’ve been a professional dog trainer since 1988. A few years ago I trained a German Shepherd dangerous fear issues. I stood at the kennel, leash in hand and greeted her. She growled. For those of you who read my opening sentence and thought what a fun job, well, not always. I opened entered the kennel. …
Penchant Toward Drama
By Shirley E. Gould As writers, we create drama, set the scene and allow it to play out to bring our characters through the circumstances that threaten their happily-ever-after ending. It’s what we do when we create stories that grip our readers and take them on a journey through our prose. We study our craft to perfect our work, giving …
Cauliflower Shortage
By Mary Lou Cheatham My family has always enjoyed cooking and eating cauliflower, a delicious and nutritious vegetable. It’s never been unavailable in the grocery store. Suddenly the cauliflower bin is empty. It is necessary to go from store to store to find it. This year’s popular diets—paleo and low-carb—contain copious amounts of cauliflower cooked in creative ways. One popular …