Update: Amber Hart is the recepient of the coaching session! Amber, email me and we'll discuss details. For the entire Christmas season, I've walked past the Salvation Army bellringer by the front door of my grocery store. He's a cheerful sort and always greets me. I smile and say "hi" back. And I shrug and […]
For the last two years, I've been in the habit of choosing three words to guide my next year. (You can read the posts explaining my word choices for 2012 here, a check-in post here, and the words for 2011 here. For another blogger's take on the process, check out Sandra's post at Always Well […]
Please welcome guest poster Alene Snodgrass, who talks about the fascinating process of co-authoring a book with a homeless man. You may remember Alene from a guest post she wrote earlier this year. Welcome back, Alene, and congratulations on the successful launch of your book! Writing is hard! There, I said it. It takes diligence […]
So, auditorally is not a word. Who knew? But this, my dear writing friends, is why God created copy editors: to tell us such things. I recently finished going through the copy edits for my forthcoming novel, Emma Jean's Bad Behavior, and my wonderful copy editor researched the word auditorally in three dictionaries before deciding […]
I'm tired of people telling me what to do. I'm tired of people telling me how to eat. (Don't eat dairy! No grains! No eggs! And puh-leeze, no sugar!) I'm tired of people telling me to exercise. (Walk. No, walking isn't enough. Run. No, running is bad for your knees, interval training. No, you have […]
Last week, in at least most of the United States, we set our clocks back one hour in order to return from Daylight Savings time to standard time, which means that it gets darker earlier (I personally love this) in the evening and lighter earlier in the morning (sort of). It also means, on the […]
Yeah, so, that headline is a clever attempt to tie this post into Halloween. In case my efforts are obtuse, mask=costume=Halloween. I know, I know, a bit labored. Except that writing voice is an important subject. (Along the same Halloween theme, last week I wrote about Fear and Focus.) And writing voice is a topic […]
Priming the pump–an old cliche, right? Yet sometimes cliches have things to teach us. I've been thinking about priming the writing pump lately because I've had a successful experience of it. My idea of priming the pump is doing a bit of pre-work to get a flow going. But I decided to look up the […]
What does it take for you, the writer, to be happy? This is a question much on my mind lately. What does it take for me to be happy? Does having my novel about to be published make me happy? Yes, very. Does not having time to work on my next novel as I finish […]
I wanted to write a blog post this morning, but my mind was empty of ideas. This is an unusual situation for me. Usually my brain is brimming with thoughts to share on writing. Not today. Was it because I just returned home from Nashville last week? Because I'd finished the greater part of a […]
