Writers spend a lot of time talking about how much they love to write. And so they should! Writing is a tremendously gratifying, passionate pursuit that feeds our souls.
But writing is also hard. And lonely. It’s sometimes emotional and often angst ridden. But let’s not dwell on the more challenging aspects of our calling. Read more
Truthfully, I’m a writer most of the time, sometimes I’m an editor and occasionally I judge writing contests.
I’ve judged numerous contests, but during the past few weeks of May, I’ve had the honour of helping judge both, a short story contest and a novel contest. I’ve discovered some important things that make a winning submission and also a few things that turn judges off immediately.
Here are a few things judges check for when judging a writing contest: Read more
I want to be a writer. I want to write. All day, at my laptop, in a journal. In my little cubby hole of a space, or by a quiet river.
This dream is obsessive enough that it can depress me. I’m forced to live in the present, each moment of my day consumed with obligatory life tasks. You know – work? My Aromatherapy course? Preparing meals? Cleaning the house? Walking the dog? Then there’s reading to do, spending time with my wonderful partner and her son, and sleeping! Where does the time go… Read more
You know this question. Why do we do things? Why do we climb mountains? Travel? Have children? Eat poorly? Why? Why? Why? Each one has a different answer, so each question has the right to be asked. So let’s ask, why do we write?
Writing began simply as a means of communication. Talking is obviously the superior form of communicating, but what if that isn’t possible? Writing was an early substitute.
Writing gave the “speaker” the ability to be heard over great distances, and to be heard verbatim by two or twenty or two thousand people or even more, without having to repeat ones self. How cool is that? Read more
Openings of short stories are actually my favourite parts to write. That’s when I am most inspired to capture a potentially great idea and create the story I envision. But this writer cannot resist spending way too much time honing the first few paragraphs, thereby losing focus and enthusiasm to complete what I’ve started.
Thus, a stack of ‘beginnings’ has been growing considerably over several years, but endings? Not so much. Recently a short story writing contest inspired me to sift through the files and choose a story to finish and submit. Read more
E. L. Doctorow once said, “fiction doesn’t have to be real, it just has to seem real.”
It’s a great piece of advice, and one of the basic tenets when I write fiction. Characters, setting and dialogue all help to create the “real” world of your novel. But research is the mother of it all.
I enjoy the research part of writing, which is a good thing, since my latest project required dozens, maybe even hundreds, of hours of research. And all for a short story of about 5,000 words! Read more
Yes, I’m working on a novel. And it’s coming along fine. But there’s still a long way to go until it is written, edited, published, and receiving splendid reviews and whopping cash advances from publishing houses.
Speaking of cash, I needed to generate some. I wanted to do it by writing something shorter than a great long novel. My friend suggested freelance writing. Editors are often looking for well-written articles for their magazines, he said.
OK, but what could I write about? I asked myself. I love research, I love the outdoors, and I love history. OK. My first step was coming up with an idea I thought would be fairly unique and interesting to people who also love those subjects. Once I had the idea, I fleshed out points that I wanted to cover in that article. I would return to those points later. Read more
Yes! I am no longer a virgin!
I will have to say, Saturday was one of the scariest moments of my life. Entering a room full of about sixty people, armed with six copies of 10 pages of my own original writing, about to hand it over for semi-strangers to read and give their analyzed comments and criticism to me. They don’t just write down their comments on your manuscript – NO – these cringeworthy words are said OUT LOUD for ALL to hear. Okay, not everyone in the room is listening, thank goodness, just the six people at my table and any eavesdroppers who were lurking (yes, I was even worried about eavesdroppers).
So, what’s the big deal? They read it, they comment on it and you go home, right? WRONG. Read more