This week for our How I Write series, my accountability group is talking about where we write. And I’m sure that the others are going to talk more about physical spaces and where they take their laptops and notebooks for field trips. I’m going to tackle this topic from a slightly different angle. I haven’t…
This week for our How I Write series, my accountability group asked, “Share at least 3 things you like or admire about each of your main characters. Share at least 3 things you like about your story.” I’m going to focus on my reluctant duke’s story, Beneath His Touch. Main Characters James never expected to…
Last week, our How I Write series laid out our writer’s toolkit and resources. This week we were asked, “Which books that you’ve read this year would you put into a time capsule for 2011?” It’s funny how you can almost tell who picked the questions each week by how whimsical or practical they are….
Last week, we talked about How We’d Spend A Day With One of Our Characters, but this week’s entry in our How I Write series, takes a closer look at our planning process. So, since we’re all writers, we’re focusing on plotting, which inevitably leads to the question: Plotter vs Pantser or some weird mix?…
Just like we need a bit of structure in our lives in order to thrive and stretch our selves to reach our goals, our writing needs a bit of structure to it. This helps keep the story coherent and cohesive and helps it resonate with the reader. I’m sure there are experimental constructions out there…
It’s time to talk and think about conflict again. I just noticed the last time I touched on this topic was March. I should have paid more attention to it then and maybe I wouldn’t be such a tight corner now. The craft books keep hammering on how you need to have conflict to make…
I hate the ones like on the SAT where they’re not much more than busy work. You know. Lots of irrelevant information thrown at you about what the weather was like when Mrs. So-n-So’s 3rd grade class went to this specific zoo and saw a group of monkeys, so many males and so many females…
So, I’ve been fiddling with a new idea to go with this game-like approach I’ve been thinking about (I haven’t forgotten, Jodi!) while being offline most of last week to spend time with my mom, her friend, and the kids who were out of school. I found a great resource Folktexts where they have collected…
I’m stuffing the rewrite of Revealed back into a “drawer” again. I want to wait until a couple people have read it and commented more thoroughly on it before tearing it apart again and just sitting here second-guessing myself. I still don’t have a lot of ideas on how I’m going to fix the hero’s…
I find myself rather annoyed with Hugh Daniel Leighton, Viscount Barrington. Last fall, he whispered sweet seductions in my ear like the practiced rake he was, urging me to tell his story. So I abandoned the ms where he’d been a secondary character and found him a nice girl with a few quirks of her…