In part one of this series, I talked about strong verbs. Part two featured a rant essay about the thesaurus. And now we come to part three, which is about the word book. It could also be titled, write the word down, stupid. (For those of you youngsters, or people with short memories, I'm riffing […]
Big Word Hunting, Part One: What is a Strong Verb? Have you ever read a novel and been impressed with the originality of the author's use of verbs? One of the hallmarks of good fiction is the use of strong, original verbs. Yet how does one go about finding these verbs when our daily lives […]
Yesterday, I wrote about the fabulous workshop that Darnell Arnoult gave for the Loft and talked about how she presented an exercise called "Finding Fiction in a Photo," wherein we looked at pictures (amazingly enough) for a full five minutes and then wrote about them. I can't express how important this kind of deep connection […]
I promised a run-down of the recent orientation weekend my partner Terry Price and I put together for the Writer's Loft, at MTSU in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Terry and I took over the program last March, (geez, it seems much longer ago than that) and so this was the first orientation on our watch. We were […]
I cannot tell a lie, because you have no doubt noticed, but I am a blogging slacker. Two weeks ago I headed to Nashville for the Writer's Loft fall orientation. This was a big to-do because it was the first actual orientation that my partner Terry and I planned since we took over the program. […]
Reason Number Gazillion why its great to be a writer: because no matter what happens, you get to write about it. When your heart is broken and life sucks, at least you get to write about it. And the worse the things that happen to you, the better story they will make. What other enterprise […]
I'm working on becoming a better observer. Generally, I go about my business, I travel, I write in my journal about my experiences, and those jottings are too often self-absorbed treatises on what I'm feeling. I like this, I don't like that, I feel so fabulous this morning or life sucks, blah, blah, blah, endless […]
It’s been one of those days. I thought I’d take time to work on some of my self-initiated projects instead of all the work I do for other people (those pesky items that pay the bills). And yet. There was a series of emails that needed to be sent out for the Loft, and those […]
My good friend and colleague, Linda Busby Parker, is starting a new press! Her first publication is going to be a Christmas anthology and she is accepting both fiction and non-fiction submissions for it. Linda is the author of Seven Laurels, which is a wonderful book that you should read, and she's one of the […]
