Straight talk from the sisters about blood, sweat and ink
For urban dwellers, nature sits apart. Most of us only see the spare, diminished nature of city parks and backyard gardens. Even these natural settings we relegate to the rear of our consciousness as we focus on the conditions around us, the cars in the street, our work cubical, a much-needed trip to the grocery …
Continue reading “Into the Wild: Creating Nature Settings”
All cliches have a kernel of accuracy; they are like stereotypes, and can be just as damaging or disparaging. A dancer who’s too old for the stage; a writer who must supplement her income while she continues to chase publication. The belief, those who can’t do, teach, rests on the premise that an artist who is …
Continue reading “Those who can’t do, teach: the cliche that misses the point”
I’ve been living the life of a starving artist for a decade and a half. I’ve never had a steady salary job. I don’t have a trust fund. My average income is $20,000/year. Basically, I work just enough to get by and spend the rest of my time writing. Which will pay off. It already …
Continue reading “10 Tips To Survive The Starving Artist Lifestyle”
Robin, Heather and I had been crit partners for months and I found their comments incredibly insightful and helpful. Meanwhile, an editor friend of mine took a crack at a few of my chapters and leveled the comment: “too many passive verbs, kill as many forms of the verb to be as you can.” I’d …
Continue reading “To Be or Not to Be: Avoiding Passive Verbs”
I happen to love architecture, I always have. I’m one of those strange people who measures time by my landmark acquisitions. However, I believe anyone can learn to write about structures (from castles, to space stations, to huts) by asking themselves a few simple questions about how they want to use the building in the …
Continue reading “Navigating Architectural Spaces in your Fiction: From Apse to Ziggurat:”
Why do we write? Seriously, what madness drives us to spend months working long, anguished hours away from society, to timidly emerge with something we desperately hope millions of people will want to share? It doesn’t stop there, mind you. We then take a deep breath, don our armor (completely useless and ineffective) and face …
Continue reading “Harry Potter wears Fifty Shades of Grey”
Exhilarated that I received several requests for full reads on the manuscript of my first novel, I saw myself on the fast track to getting published. Most of my writer buds had sent out tons of queries and received “thanks, but no thanks” that’s if they received any response at all. I’d only sent out …
Continue reading “Self-Editing: How To Pull the Weeds From Your Manuscript.”
The principles of choosing and researching a real world location for your fictional setting follows the same rules regardless of the genre. So contemporary writers listen up, someone out there knows more about the downtrodden civic center you’ve picked as the setting for your new novel than you do. So if you don’t want the …
Continue reading “Misty Moors and Bloody Battlements: The Rules of Setting”
Whatever your writing process, whether you outline or dive straight into prose, there’s one step we all must do – story edit. There are innumerable things to edit in a manuscript, but let’s start with the bones of the story. After all, adding metaphors and sensory descriptions won’t matter if the story is weak. So …
Continue reading “Story Edit Using The “Save The Cat” Basic Beats”
Sometimes what you really need is a great book. The Sisters can sympathize. As writers, we are avid readers. On the last Saturday of each month, we will share our book picks for the current season. Nothing sends me under the covers with a book faster than the first wisps of autumn. The family has …
Continue reading “What We’re Reading: For Halloween”