The immense benefits of a writing group are not always obvious from the beginning of an adventure. You may have mixed feelings as you sign up for a writing course or attend a conference or sit in on a writer’s group meeting as an observer, but I can tell you, there will be benefits you could never have imagined. [Read more…]
This past week I’ve procrastinated with my writing deadlines more than any other week over the past couple of years, even though I have multiple deadlines for stories and contests in the very near future. I’ve also noticed that I am checking the news more often than I need to. I’ve NEVER EVER been much of a “need-to-know-news-immediately” kind of person, but I am NOW.
Why? What has happened in the past week or so that has changed everything? [Read more…]
If writer’s block truly exists, then, in my humble opinion, it is nothing more than missing inspiration. If I’m inspired, nothing can stop me from writing.
Inspiration is the “Right mood” for the intercourse between the writer and the page.
It’s the thing that sends you scurrying for the candles and wine glasses, makes you light the fireplace and get that comforter out of the chest in the front hall, open the chocolates and put on the stereo … so to speak.
I have a square paper cube with words written on all six sides. It sits on my desk. I made this cube many years ago at a motivational talk given by a world champion archer.
I roll the cube like a die; the word “drive” is on top. Along with this word is “stay focused” and “Don’t give up!” [Read more…]
Nineteen ninety-seven. That was probably the last time I sat down and completed what one could call a ‘work of fiction.’ I was in high school and my English teacher would have given me the assignment with strict instructions on word count, theme, and possibly even plot. I had some pretty serious English teachers back in the day (thank goodness). [Read more…]
Along with the mid-December blizzards here in Grey County, there’s been a flurry of activity around the launch of a new book.
This blog, I promise, will be the last sentimental gushing from me regarding the Ascribe Writers’ recent project of publishing the short story collection, Beneath the Surface. But gush I must, for just a few paragraphs.
Completing the story-writing marked the end of the project in one sense but once the books were in our hands, the journey continued to unfold. [Read more…]
From the first word we ever typed, penned, or scribbled, all of us who have written anything have always dreamed of one day seeing our work published.
And that’s what happened this week for The Ascribe Writers: the book launch of the first anthology of our short stories, Beneath the Surface: A Collection of Grey-Bruce Stories. [Read more…]
I’ve heard it a few times, but mostly from people repeating what they’ve heard other people say. And for the longest while, I thought it to be true.
It’s one of those things that people just hear and accept. Usually those things either seems logical, or they’re so far fetched that someone would have to be crazy to repeat them if they weren’t true, therefore, they must be true.
But sometimes the truth is obscured by the repetition of falsehoods to the point of those falsehoods becoming pseudo-facts.
The one I’m talking about is that oft repeated rule of writing, “write what you know.” [Read more…]
