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
Last night I did something I hadn’t done in a while. I laid out some tarot cards and gave myself a reading.
I’m not great at knowing what each card represents. I still need the companion book to decipher what the Four of Cups is trying to tell me, or why the Queen of Pentacles is upside down. After all thirteen cards were translated, I realized they all fit together and told a little story. A story of my life; the recent past and what the future might hold, and right in the middle – the present – was The Fool. Me. Read more
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