Straight talk from the sisters about blood, sweat and ink
My first foray into writing led me to an uncomfortable place: writing the love scene— and so I decided to do a little research before I made a total fool of myself. Since it was a YA novel, it was tame compared to what I’ve currently written, but I quickly understood that the elements are …
Continue reading “Writing the Love Scene: Sex or No Sex”
I’m taking a break this week from my Brain Triggers series and returning to the ever-popular Casting Call series. Today I have four characters, each selected from my strange bedfellows category. For the most part these characters fall into a romantic subgroup. Twisted though they may be, these common archetypes work for characters of either …
Continue reading “Casting Call: 4 Archetypes of Lovers With Baggage”
Last week I read the New York Times Bookends column “Are the New ‘Golden Age’ TV Shows the New Novels?” and got riled up about Adam Kirsch’s opinion, which basically boils down to “how dare TV shows think they are as great as novels!” Well, I feel the need to counter with “how dare you …
Continue reading “Is TV the New Novel?”
I’m an impostor. I know it. And I can’t believe no one’s called me out on it. I pretend to be a writer but I can’t claim erudition when it comes to writing. I’m a student of science and math, the rules of which I’ve studied extensively and understand. I love the rubrics of math. …
Continue reading “Ignorance is Bliss: Breaking Writing Rules, Continued…”
As part of my ongoing series on using brain triggers, today I’m looking at ways we can all use sounds to improve our writing. If you want to learn more about brain triggers and how they work, you might want to head back to my last post, Be a Better Writer, Use Brain Triggers. I’m …
Continue reading “Brain Triggers Part II: Sounds”
A former writing coach once stated emphatically, “Never start with a dream.” He had lots of other rules about beginning a novel: never in a moving vehicle, never at a funeral, or with an alarm clock, with the weather, dialogue, and a whole host of other stratagems of setting. In fact, there were so …
Continue reading “Should Novels Start with Dreams? Dare to Break the Rules!”
Our brains are remarkable machines capable of sorting and storing information we don’t even realize is in there. It’s being able to recall this data that trips most of us up. We can all think of a time we felt a fierce emotion. We know the feeling is perfect for our current writing project. We …
Continue reading “Be a Better Writer: Use Brain Triggers”
I’ve been working on my current novel since May. Back then it was a vague one-sentence idea. I wrote about four beat sheets a month, feeling out the story and figuring out how to shape it. In October I started outlining, and as I outlined I’d find problems and head back to the beat sheet …
Continue reading “Write, Revise & Repeat – Are You Stuck in a Rut?”
I always have a pile of books on my bedside table. This month in particular I checked out more books from the library than I had time to read. At one point the pile was twelve high! Craziness! How could I possibly read them all? Well, since I have a job and stuff I’m trying …
Continue reading “Reading For Writers 101: Books I Did Not Finish… 3+ Reasons Why”
As I surge forward in my growth as a writer I often reflect on the speech patterns learned from my family. It wasn’t until I attended college that I realized my mother should have been nicknamed “The Cliché Queen.” I thought everyone spoke that way until someone pointed it out to me. I still struggle …
Continue reading “Plant a Garden: On Becoming a Word Gatherer”