Category: on writing

From Ruby Slippers to Rings: Objects in Your Story

Seana Moorhead Leave a comment

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Robert Ray, in his book “The Weekend Novelist Re-Writes the Novel”, provides the following tip: “Plant a sacred object on page one that recurs in Acts Two and Three. By the midpoint, that sacred object could be growing into a symbol. Symbols can make you famous.   That sacred object, grown into a symbol, should make you proud. A happy writer.”

 

I know the importance of characters and setting in a story. But objects? What’s he talking about? With the lure of “famous, proud and happy” on the hook, I decided to find out.

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The Maybe Not So Lonely Act of Writing

Andrée Levie-Warrilow 1 Comment
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Photo by Lori Twining

Someone once wrote “writing is a lonely business”.

We all know the familiar cliché of the author sitting at his or her desk, coffee cups scattered about the work surface, dirty dishes with half-eaten food lying about, and wadded pieces of paper littering the floor and overflowing out of waste bins (ok, maybe only old people like me know that cliché).

The thing is, after all the lectures, grammar rules, tips and recommendations for better play/ novel/short story/ screen play/ writing, – well, the fact is, you’re the only one who can write your work. You. Sitting there, with your note pad, your tablet, your laptop, your desktop.

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Editing is Writing

Diane Ferguson Leave a comment

“What I write is smarter than I am because I can re-write it.” Susan Sontag

by Brian O'Rourke
The Orion Nebula by Brian O’Rourke

We’re not always trying to be smarter,  be we are trying to be better. For some the words just flow and little editing is needed. These are the best storytellers! But for many of us writers, we need to edit, especially beginning writers, at least I did. I keep hoping it gets easier in time. I keep reading more about how to write and all the techniques and things to remember get stuck in my head and I hope one day they just become part of me. We’ll see as I start on my second novel.  Read more

How to Rev Up Your Word Count & Finish That Novel

Lori Twining Leave a comment
Lou-writing-1
Lori Twining writing her current thriller novel.

So, you are a writer and you are writing a novel, BUT you just can’t find the time to finish it. Are you procrastinating? Are you spending more time thinking about writing that novel, than you are writing it? Are you stuck at Chapter Three and you don’t know what should happen next? Are you wondering what could you possibly do, to make your fingers fly across the keyboard at lightening speeds to finish telling your story? What could you do that will inspire you and motivate you into finally completing your novel? Do you want to know the quickest way to rev up your word count and finish that novel? I have four answers for you:

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Faith In Writing

Kelly Babcock Leave a comment
Well, that's part of it ...
Well, that’s part of it …

I have a T-shirt that says “Music is my Life!” and another one that says “Music is my Religion!” and they get a lot of wear. Neither one of them is wrong, they don’t lie, they’re just not complete.

The truth is that creating is my life. Creating music and stories and poems. And creating is also my religion. I’d call myself a creationist, but that would be misleading too.

The largest part of my creating by far is my writing, because it covers so much territory. And the larger part of the writing is prose in the form of blog posts and online magazine articles, freelance articles (though I haven’t done one of those in a while), short stories, and the ongoing novel.

But there is poetry and lyrics always lurking in my mind, waiting to be discovered and recorded, usually quickly, before it disappears again below the surface of the murky, unfathomable depths of my mired mind. Read more

New Beginnings

Seana Moorhead Leave a comment

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It’s autumn, a season that feels like a new beginning to me. For some, it’s a new school, teachers and new friends to meet. For others, it’s the end of summer and the start of another fall and into winter, ending the hot days and beginning the cold evenings.

Earlier in the spring of this year, my parents filled my car with boxes of my old school notes. In total, 11 cardboard boxes. The boxes had been stored perfectly for years in their basement; it’s a testimony to their cellar that the paper was dry and crisp – not a spot of mould on them.   They contained every note, project, essay and story that I wrote from grade 6 to grade 13.

I do not have a basement (yet, again – see my previous blog) so the boxes resided in my hallway. They sat for months there because frankly, I was too scared to open them. But the other week with summer gone and in the midst of a new season, I decided to deal with my past and not have it clutter the hallway, like piles of dirty dishes on the counter. Plus it’s difficult to negotiate to the laundry room with my boxes.

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The Story of our Lives

Diane Ferguson Leave a comment
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Freeimages.com/TJSmith

The story of our lives doesn’t come to us in a lightning bolt of realization, but unfolds slowly before us, inch-by-inch, mile-by-mile, day by day. We are creating our futures today but we can only see so far on the road ahead. Sometimes we have great clarity and can see for miles. Other times, we are in a fog and can barely see past the next signpost. Or the unexpected happens, a racoon darting out in the road. We can swerve and miss it, we can hit it, or we can swerve and hit an oncoming car. This moment may, or may not, change our lives. Times of crisis, when there is a seismic shift in the landscape of our lives, is when it is most difficult to see the road ahead, when the path is most obscured. Like driving at night in a snow-storm in Grey County, you’re going inch-by-inch. Read more