Halloween Treat – Edgar Allan Poe

So, we have crisp fall nights. We have costumes. We have buckets and pillowcases brimming with treats. We have pumpkins grinning and flashights swinging. We have screams, haunted houses, whisps of dry ice floating around ruby red slippers, cowboy boots, and superhero tights. We have arrived at All Hallows’ Eve. Bwahaha. I’m not a big …
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Five Attitudes Toward Success

As a business coach, I recently had occasion to research what makes people successful, and I found this great article that I’m going to steal and talk about writing – success is success no matter what business you are in, and, believe it or not, writing is a business. I’ve used his headings, but changed it …
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Emotional Writing – Going Deep

Emotional Writing One of our WOS sisters here just suffered the loss of her mother. I can’t imagine, although I know it’s coming. The woman who gave you life cannot and should not outlive yours. But it must be devastating. I once had a critique partner tell me to “go deeper.” That she could tell …
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So Many Books, So Little Time

  I love books. The covers, the flypapers, the feel of the paper, the enticement on the book jacket. I can get captured inside of thirty seconds. I used to spend my life in Borders surrounded by books and magazines and literary types in the café that had the world’s best coffee and pastries. I’d …
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Failure Is An Option

Biographies have always fascinated me. I love to read and hear how others become successful, what motivates them, yadda yadda yadda. It’s the human interest part of me that wants to scoop this stuff up, not from People or OK Magazine, or, God forbid, the National Enquirer (not that there’s anything wrong with them), but …
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Play Your Hunches

It’s the one lesson I remember from my father, who died when I was young: play your hunches. Three years ago I went to a writing workshop in San Francisco. I had just been forcibly retired and thought I might look into another profession – one that didn’t involve Boards of Directors, staff, agendas, emails …
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What We’re Reading: Women’s Fiction

Women’s fiction is our category this month. Just what is women’s fiction? Literature with women protagonists appear along a continuum of literary fiction to erotica. Quite a spread! Women’s fiction is closer to the literary fiction end but without the self-consciousness and pretension of literary fiction. By the same token, while there may be a love interest in …
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Things are Getting Drafty

Following up and adding to Caryn’s post yesterday: What exactly is a “draft”? If you go from beginning to end without any revisions, that could reasonably be called a draft. But do we really? I work on a scene forever before I move on, maybe I skip around a bit to feel out other characters, …
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