He had done it half a dozen times before, and had messed up. This time would be a success. Finally, there was a way he could impress Rachel. He looked over at Gordy, slumped against the passenger’s door snoring blissfully. Rex—a stiff smile on his face, his fingers on the dashboard—drumming, didn’t bother to slow down...
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Friday, December 24, 2010
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Chapter 1
The warehouse was set on a one-way street, across from an empty parking lot. The area was deserted, a spray-painted district of businesses with two story homes in between them. The homes had pitched roofs and small patches of bare land, gated and locked.
Just beyond the gate of the warehouse, she stopped for...
Saturday, November 20, 2010
I regularly follow other writers and bloggers blogs. The following links will lead you to discover several interesting points that could help you discover a great deal. So pull a chair over, bring your cup of coffee with you and enjoy the learning ride...
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware, she...
Monday, November 01, 2010
01
Nov
The following is an excerpt from my book: Blow Forward
Amid stamped his feet to the ground, and tried to think about anything else other than the chill that gnawed at his bones. He chose to forgo making the dawn Salat for fear that kneeling in the parking lot would draw unwanted attention. Instead, he opted to practice...
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Writing Body Language is a wonderful way to inject movement and punctuate mood into your story. I am a firm believer in paying close attention to my characters and signaling to the reader what they feel without having to actually spell it out.
Juliette Wade wrote a great blog about it, far better than I could.
TalkToYoUniverse:...
Body language is a wonderful way to inject movement and punctuate mood into your story. I am a firm believer in paying close attention to my characters and signaling to the reader what they feel without having to tell them that. Juliette Wade wrote a blog just about that. She said it better than I ever could.
Here...
Monday, October 11, 2010
11
Oct
It peaked in the Berkshires this weekend. The trip lasts about three hours to get there from Manhattan. Under normal circumstances, I'd have little endurance for spending such a long time cooped up inside of a car. But this trip is worth it. Once we get out of the city, the topography is breathtaking. Each season brings...
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
22
Sep
If you want to become a better writer, the following link will take you to a great blog Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware.
http://accrispin.blogspot.com/2010/09/guest-blog-post-how-deliberate-practice.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AtLastWriterBewareBlogsAcCrispinAndVictoriaStraussRevealAll+%28Writer+Beware+Blogs%21%29
The...
Sunday, September 19, 2010
The Bookshelf Muse: 1000 Followers Contest & Mentorship Opportuni...
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Do you self publish or go the route of traditional publishing.
I've read a lot of stuff over the years about self-publishing versus "traditional" publishing and, depending on what I've read and where I've read it, I can see pros and con arguments for either method. Mind you, I am not talking about "vanity press" here....
Monday, August 09, 2010
09
Aug
A query is what gets your foot in the door. A query is your novel’s letter of introduction. You want to make a good impression. If the query letter does not hold all the component an agent is looking for, he or she will probably reject you without even looking at the first page of your novel. There is no one perfect formula...
Wednesday, August 04, 2010
04
Aug
Fellow writers,
I am constantly scouting the Internet for new and educational information to help me to
become a better writer. The following is just a few of the sites I frequent.
Hope you find it helpful.
Beefing up your author bio:
http://bookmarketingmaven.typepad.com/book_marketing_maven/2010/07/perk-up-your-bio.html
In...
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
I am not a published writer yet. But I know I will be sooner or later. Meanwhile, I continue to write becuase this is what I like to do.
I just read Maryann Yin's blog, titled "Authors Unite in Marketing." What a clever idea!!! Too often, I hear about writerly jealousy. Yes, you heard me. I come across writers (friends...
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
I just finished reading Joanna Paterson's blog, "Can Writing Keep Us Well?" http://confidentwriting.com/2010/06/can-writing-keep-us-well-group-writing-project/
The title itself is enough to trigger contemplation. My husband often tells me that my rapt concentration when I write is intense. I write often. I write daily....
Monday, July 26, 2010
Premeditated Writer: Prologue - What Do You thi...
Confusing, to say the least, this Prologue thing.
Some say that prologue is completely unnecessary, that the story should begin somewhere in the middle. You could say that there is a place within the story itself that you could position the same information to allow for a slower progression of facts. Some even say that...
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
20
Jul
It is Chapter 22, 250 pages into the book, and I am stuck. Stuck, as in...how am I going to orchestrate a good fight and kill someone I happened to like? So, I brought in a another character who is just as likable. But I will not have a hard time killing.
It's really the timing. Do I have the bad guys talk to Lizzie...
Thursday, May 27, 2010
27
May
In between writing, I garden. Pulling weeds could be tedious. I know. But this mindless task frees my imagination. Being in nature reminds me of beauty and helps in the process of finishing my novel.
The following is an excerpt from my first, unpublished novel.
Jamie felt a slight jerk and then the sound of the...
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
11
May
I can't believe I'm writing a thriller. I don't read 'em...don't watch 'em. But here I am writing one. It just happened. I had an idea of a story, was sure it would turn out to be Literary Fiction just like my first book.
At the outset my protagonist only reacts to events; at some point, however, she embarks on an attempt...
Saturday, May 08, 2010
The polite rejection letters continue to arrive. Can't say it’s not affecting me. It is. But I try to keep an upbeat outlook. Mainly, I continue to write everyday while splitting my loyalty between two books: the one rejected, and the one in progre...
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Angela Ackerman inspired me to write this blog in her posting: Blogging Platform: Creating the Breakout Blog. In her blog, she mentions Donald Maass' WRITING THE BREAKOUT NOVEL. I confess I haven't read all the self help books on writing in a while. So I am do.
Let me give you a list of the ones I've bought and helped...
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
16
Mar
The title is not my creation. I read it in another blog (don't remember whose). I thought it was very clever. The idea behind it is to write without the intent, rather to just allow the flow of words continue. ...
Saturday, February 27, 2010
27
Feb
I finished writing my first book two years ago, and of course, the next natural thing to do at that time was to send my baby out into the world. So I wrote my query, researched agents, followed their instructions with a magnifying glass. I just knew an agent would call immediately, and say how publishable I was. We would...
Saturday, January 23, 2010
23
Jan
I know I should be writing something. Every How To blogs aimed at writers tell you to get out of the comfort of your cozy cocoon and write a blog. Write a blog. Yuck. What if I have nothing to say? Silly, you think. Of course, you have something to say. You can say that it has taken you four years to write a book, another...
Thursday, January 07, 2010
I often use a text to speech software to help me listen to mistakes in writing when I'm self-editing. There's that old advice of reading your writing aloud, but this seems to improve upon that. The tendency to gloss over errors when reading our own writing undermines the purpose of the whole process. When listening to...