Author: Seana Moorhead

Seana Moorhead is an aspiring writer and is working on completing her first fantasy novel. She moved to Grey County in 2002, having a passion for outdoor adventures, including kayaking and wilderness camping. Suffering from a book addiction, she will read almost anything that will grab her attention, lead her into another world or teach her something new. Seana lives in a bush lot near Owen Sound, Ontario with her partner and three dogs.

Summer: Time to be Inspired

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It’s Tuesday morning and we’re off to the Keady market, something I am only able to do in summer months when I can sneak a day off mid week. In the dim light, I squeeze into the livestock auction. The musty smell of the animals and manure overwhelms until my nose adjusts to the stench.

Everything about this event makes me feel like I am in a movie; from the auctioneer calling out in the trademark spew of an un-breaking chain of numbers, to the weatherworn faces of the farmers, their eyes seeing something in the lots of cows that my own eyes are unable to discern, to the worn plank seating.

My novel needs an auction scene.

Maybe a horse auction. Then I think of famous markets – the camel market in India; the pearl market in Beijing; the witches market in Bolivia. Maybe my novel should have a dragon auction! My mind whirls as I imagine the chaos of dragons here in Keady instead of cows.

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Your Novel is Hiding in the Garden

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I hear you. There’s no time to write. Job. Kids. Cook dinner. Garden. Walk dog (or play with cat). Dishes. Laundry. Drive kids to hockey / dance / theatre / do kids paper route because it seemed like a good idea months ago. Go to work.  Then all the other optional things: play piano; run chicken barn; paint; sing songs; construct glorious garage / workshop & orchard (that would be me); pick up dirty socks (all of us). Job (again!). Stop.

What if I suggest it is not about lack of time, but lack of Read more

3 Tips for Inspiration

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Do you ever feel like you’re wandering through a snowstorm in your writing?  You can’t quite see your way through your plot and your vision is obscured. Or maybe you’re struggling to start writing your story? You have an idea, a vague mass of a story. Like having flour and water but you don’t know how to make bread with them. You mix them together and all you get is a sticky, wet lump.

Here are 3 tips to get your story moving: Read more

GOYA

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I recently bought a pottery cup with the word “goya” written on it by a local artist.  “Goya” is an Urdu word and has been described as an “untranslatable” word. Roughly, it can mean the “transporting suspension of disbelief that can occur in good story telling.”

 

This tiny word captures what I seek in my writing: to have a reader become enchanted by my story and feel transported into another world.   This is the ultimate in literary escapism and all without drugs.

 

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A Pace Apart

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Pacing in a story is crucial. When the tension is high, the writing should reflect that tension. The reader should feel like they’re driving a racecar across the pages. But you can’t expect your reader to read at a mad dash gallop all the time. Occasionally you need to slow, let the readers catch their breath before lulling them into a trot again. But how do you know if you have the right pacing?

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Polishing your story to a shine: hiring an editor

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I decided to hire an editor for my story, The White Witch. This is my book I’ve been obsessed with writing and rewriting for many years. I’ve had friends read earlier drafts giving me wonderful feedback and comments. I’ve done many, many edits. I felt I had arrived at a destination where the story was done but not complete; kind of like finishing a dinner but wanting to stick around for dessert and coffee. And I wanted a professional.

After all, I have devoted thousands of hours to this book. It deserved the best.

I did my research. How to hire an editor? I first had to decide what kind of editing I wanted. Did I want a broad view such as a manuscript evaluation to provide comments on story structure, character development, pacing, consistent POV, dialogue and description? Or a line by line substantive edit to help fix my grammar and sentence structure? Sometimes there’s a combination of the two or a third option of a final copy edit.

I decided upon a manuscript evaluation rationalizing that if there were major story structure flaws or characters to fix, I might end up re-writing several scenes so no point in nitpicking my verb tenses (yet).

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A Writer’s Dream

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And What Happens When You Find Yourself Without Time to Write.

               Beware! Your Dream Self may have Plans of Her Own.

                               This is based on a true story (more or less). 

                                             While sleeping Friday night…  

I’m enjoying a fantastic ride along a vivid dreamscape. My dream self, with my dream sisters, impulsively decide to charter an enormous cargo boat to cross the Atlantic Ocean to Europe. Excitement runs high and they dance along the decks, giggling and high fiving each other as the boat cruises through the water.

The Captain, a wire thin man with a hunched shoulder, occasionally removes his eyeball to nibble on the backside, like a nervous habit whenever he’s stressed. After, he slips eyeball back into the socket with a sucking sound, chewed end towards his skull so no one can notice. There’s a First Mate, but he’s sly and mute fellow, never quite seen clearly, like a shadow. The only other person on board is The Engineer, who drives the boat like he’s drunk, often getting it stuck in shallows and taking the curves at high speed so he could bank the boat on its keel (I know, we’re technically in the ocean, but dreams tend bend reality). With all the twists and turns, he ends up getting them lost.

They come upon an unknown land. On the cliff banks, there’s a semi-deserted town, half in ruins. Children hide in doorways and cats lick their paws on cinderblocks. They discover a back laneway leading to two-story building that sells scraps of junk.   The owner has a short beard, a kind voice and invites them to wander through his yard of wonders. As they trudge deeper into fray, it extends on and on like an unwinding skein of yarn.

This is when my dream self slips away from the others, on the excuse of looking for a bathroom. She enters a steel constructed building and in its depth, she discovers a windowless room. Inside, there’s a tub holding a sleeping baby. Like in the historical pictures of Inuit children, the child is bundled in layers of fur and circle the face giving the baby an owl like appearance. There’s a tiny toilet – which my dream self uses – slightly disturbing to me, but no, I didn’t pee in the bed. And where a counter and sink might be, instead is a desk with a flat screen computer.

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