Author: Tracey Richardson

Tracey Richardson has had several novels published by Bella Books, two of which were Lambda Literary Awards finalists. Semi-retired now from a long-time journalism career, Tracey spends as much time writing and reading as her two demanding chocolate Labrador retrievers will allow. She also enjoys playing hockey, golf, and occasionally teaches fiction writing. History, politics and time travel are among her more exotic reading material. www.traceyrichardson.net; Twitter @trich7117.

Summertime And The Livin’ Is…Easy?

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I hear constantly from fellow writers that they have trouble carving out time to write. Or they have the time, but they’re often swamped by writer’s block.

I seem to be the opposite. I have lots of time (in theory at least) to write and I rarely have writer’s block (too many years of being a writer, both as a newspaper journalist and as a published author, have mostly inoculated me against this).

At the moment, I’m trying to give myself a writing break, mostly because the timing is perfect. I handed in my latest manuscript to my publisher in late May and there’s no rush to start another novel. I busied myself this spring with a sizable freelance writing project and other paid work. Summer is here now and, well, that’s the perfect time to kick back and enjoy, right? Read more

Goodbye, little bird!

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Saying goodbye is never easy, especially to something you’ve spent more than a year with, and almost every day. If not physically every day, certainly mentally and emotionally.

I’m saying goodbye this week to my work-in-progress. Meaning, I’m ready to hand my manuscript off to my publisher, where it will eventually make its way through the editing, typesetting and proofreading process for a late 2018 publication date. My little bird has wings, and now it’s flying away.

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The Love (And Hate) Of A Great Book

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As writers, we love to read good books. We appreciate them, we celebrate them, we admire them, we lose ourselves in them. Why, then, does reading a good book sometimes cause our writing insecurities to rear their ugly little heads?

One of my writing acquaintances recently complained that while she was loving a book she was reading, at the same time she was finding it discouraging. Why? She elaborated, saying it made her feel like she could never write something that great and so why the hell was she even trying.

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Group Therapy

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When you’re starting to write a novel, you never really know if your plot and characters have legs. You have your main characters, you have a pretty good idea of what’s going to happen to them, you have a central theme, and an ending in mind. All these ideas swimming around in your head may or may not work on the written page.
That’s because what we imagine about our characters and their journey might not translate to the reader. What we imagine as writers may work in our minds, but not on the page. The final result might not resonate or connect with the reader, and this is the worst thing that can happen to a novelist. Not poor sales, not poor royalty cheques, not one or two bad reviews, not failing to win an award. No. It’s having a reader shake her head and say she has no clue what the author is trying to accomplish and feels nothing (or little) for the characters. Read more

My Guilty Writing Fuel

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For most of us writers, doing the thing we love most entails planting our butt in a chair for hours on end. Not only are we physically inert, but our minds wander too. Writing is tedious work; boredom can easily set in. That’s when many of us feel the need for a little assistance to keep us focused and fueled.

Coffee, tea or…

By “assistance” what I really mean is a pleasant little diversion to keep us from going completely bonkers while we’re writing our next opus. And often, this diversion is a guilty pleasure, such as chocolate (one of God’s wonders for sure!), coffee (again, nectar from the Gods), tea, candy, or smoking for famous authors such as Patricia Highsmith, Oscar Wilde and George Orwell. Read more

Humility and the Writer

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Oh Lord it’s hard to be humble
When you’re perfect in every way
— from the song, “It’s Hard to be Humble”

You would think writers are the humblest people around.

They’ve become practiced at it from writing mountains and mountains of words, only for many if not all of those words never to see the light of day in the form of being published. Writers get used to rejections and criticism—from publishers, editors, reviewers, awards or contest judges, readers and even other writers.

With all that adversity, the writer’s ego should be in tatters, paralyzing him or her from writing another single word. And yet that’s hardly the case. Writers are some of the most resilient, tenacious people I know (they have to be if they want to continue doing what they love). Writers are also some of the most stubbornly egotistical people too. Read more

Emotion is the Superhero of Fiction Writing

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“It’s just emotion that’s taken me over…” The BeeGees, from the song “Emotion”

Emotion is, well, just about everything when it comes to fiction. Emotion is what engages readers the deepest. Emotion is what makes thereader laugh, cry, cheer, get pissed off, hate, judge. It makes them feel. It makes them forget they’ve fallen into the world of fiction.

Emotion is the one, main element of my writing that’s taken me to a new level the last few years. And it took me awhile to get there. To get how important it is in fiction and to get (or at least somewhat get) how to transfer, infuse, express emotion in my writing. Read more