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Scrivener vs MS Word Posts
I came upon two posts today discussing Scrivener. This is a word processing program that is aimed at writers. Some writers have embraced the program while others find the learning curve too steep to...
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Diane the Writer
I’ve been off now for eleven days. Each day brings a new challenge, a new chore and thoughts of getting back into what I love to do: writing, blogging and publishing. It feels like I’ve been away for...
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Benefits of Writers’ Groups
Are you a writer? Are you a member of a writers’ group? You should be…unless you can’t find one locally that suits your needs. What are the benefits of a writers’ group? 1) You learn a lot about...
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Murder in the Sky
This evening I stepped out the back door to feed the animals before tucking them in for the night, and I was met with an amazing sight: dozens upon dozens of crows flying over the back yard, swooping,...
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Snow Day from Business Program
Well, this was unexpected. A snow day. My plans were to complete a three-day business program today, but I received word before 7:00 am that due to hazardous road conditions, it was postponed until...
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Keeping Score with your Credit
We finished our three-day business program today, the one that was postponed from last Saturday due to the weather. The big “wow, I didn’t know that!” moment came when we were talking about credit...
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My Library of Books for Writing Fantasy
A short time ago, Ernesto San Giacomo posted his 2015 Reading List. In the list was Writing About Magic by Rayne Hall. I commented, saying I had several books about magic, herbs and stones to help me...
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Old Habits are Hard to Kill
The other day while driving home from picking up hay, I ran through the current scene I was writing in Healing Stones. I played it out in my mind as if a movie. The actors spoke their lines and I...
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When Should You Give Up on Writing?
In the recent WritingWorld.com newspaper, the following question was posed by a reader named Sheila: At what point should an author give up writing? After thinking about this a bit, I wrote the...
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Lesley Crewe on Making a Film
Atlantic Books Today asked Lesley Crewe to share five things she learned while turning her novel, Relative Happiness, into a movie. Always answer “yes”, when someone calls you out of the blue and asks...
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Create, Organise, Rearrange with MS Word
G. Kaye wrote a post not long ago regarding Scrivener, the software that is meant to make our writing life easier. Like me, however, many writers have found the program’s large learning curve...
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First Draft Skeletons
My son is writing a novel for a school assignment. I’m walking him through the process. Sometimes he gets stuck and doesn’t know what details to add and which to leave out. I remind him that he’s...
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Cool Online Dictionary
I have about a dozen or more paperback and hard cover dictionaries. They sit on my shelf a few feet away. They contain thousands, possibly millions, of words that will help me write a story. But...
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Men Writing Women
For some reason, women writers used to believe that they had to use a male pen name to make their books more saleable. George Eliot is a case in point, and only in my third year of varsity did I...
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Food for Thought
As I mentioned in a previous post, my son is writing his first novel. He’s working on the first draft and is almost 5,000 words in. This is the most he’s ever written. It’s a little choppy and filled...
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Making a Mountain Out of a Mole Hill
All my life, I’ve been told to not make mountains out of mole hills. Why? Because situations are usually not that dramatic or life-threatening. If we can stop and evaluate the situation, we often find...
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Familiar Character Names
One of the best parts of writing fiction is naming the characters. For some, this may be the most dreaded part of creating a story. Still, it has to be done. Being prepared with a name makes this game...
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Writing Romantic Scenes
I grew up with older, conservative parents. They were born in the 1920s and lived through the Depression. My father served overseas in the Second World War. They never spoke about sex. In fact, my...
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Writing Tip: Giving Characters Their Distinct Voice
How many times have you heard, all the characters sound the same? Probably more than once. One of my exercises the past few months is reading reviews on Amazon. I don’t bother reading the four and five...
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Writing Tip: How to Make any Story Good
Last week while I was cooking supper, my thirteen-year-old son walked into the kitchen and asked, “Do you know what makes a movie good?” I looked up from peeling potatoes, and the expression on his...
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