My Guilty Writing Fuel

Tracey Richardson Leave a comment

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

Local Literary Adventures & the Words Aloud Festival

Diane Ferguson 1 Comment

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” — Robert Frost

Are you a genre writer? Or a poet? Or a novelist? Or do you just like to read in these areas? No matter what you love, it’s always good to try something new, something different. We all have something to learn from each other. Check out what literary events are happening in your area. Go to them, support them, enjoy them. At the very least, you might make some new friends. Go see authors you haven’t read before, join a book club and read something different.

Hwy 4 Writers Group Reunite at Words Aloud I’m holding Suzanne Sloan’s book, Mining the Memories

I’ll give you some examples from my own experience. Earlier this summer, a friend had an extra ticket to a romance writer’s event in Collingwood an hour away. We carpooled and met with others for dinner first before listening to four romance writers read and talk about their writing. Now, I don’t write romance novels, but I can’t imagine myself writing a novel without romance in it. There’s always something to learn and I had a great time and made new friends. Read more

Branding Like a Boss

Lori Twining Leave a comment

This month, my writing group has taken an interest in developing their author websites and all I could think of while they were discussing this topic was… “Please don’t look at mine as an example.”

Why?

Because I’m one of those authors that still hasn’t decided on how to brand myself. You look at my landing page on my website and you will have no clue as to what I write. This is because I’m prone to genre-hopping. This allows me to write anything I want, whenever I want. I like to be in control. I don’t want to be known for only one thing. Yesterday, I worked on Literary Fiction and today I worked on a Suspense-Thriller novel. Who knows what I’ll work on tomorrow?

What’s wrong with that? Read more

No End In Sight

Kelly Babcock Leave a comment
dead end sign
This better end well!

So, I’m more than half way through writing the novel I’m currently working on, and I’ve hit a snag.

My characters have all gotten lazy.

They’re doing nothing. They’re talking about what’s happened so far, and they’re going through the motions of their day to day lives, but they’re not moving my plot ahead in any visible way.

And I’ve gotten bored with them.

Read more

A Tale of Two Books

Seana Moorhead 1 Comment

I recently read two similar books.

Both were fantasy set in imagined worlds.

Both used two different points of views to tell the story.

After stripping away the details, both had similar plotlines in broad strokes (protagonists chased / hunted by bad guys).

Both were decently written.

But one was more compelling than the other.

One grabbed my attention from the first paragraphs and pulled me like a tidal wave, forcing me to read late into the night to finish it. The other took more time before being captured by the pages.

Although I enjoyed the latter book, its first chapter didn’t entice me in the same way as the other. For the former, the first page hooked me.

As a writer I wanted to know what made the difference between these two books.

Read more

To Quit or Not to Quit Writing

Donna Judy Curtin 1 Comment

Life is Busy

We all have commitments that fill up our day, our calendar and our thoughts.

At times, it seems as though my life and the choices I have made are overtaking my ability to continue to decide how I want to spend my day.

There comes a point where we need to clean house and decide what must stay on our ‘to do’ list, however, lately it seems the things that tend to get kicked off my plate are things I actually want to do.

So there goes writing time

Time to give up. Toss in the towel. Zip up the heart and close the computer screen.

If you know me at all, I can already imagine you shaking your head and mumbling,

“What’s the catch?”

Allow me to digress, one last time, into storytelling, because as I’ve stated, I’m quitting this writing thing. Read more

Humility and the Writer

Tracey Richardson Leave a comment

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