Tag: writer

Scrabble tiles spelling Grace with flowers.

A Writer’s Grace

Donna Judy Curtin 1 Comment

I’m late.  (not PREGNANT… just late, at life – everything, but specifically, this blog is late)

We set a blog post deadline. We give ourselves this deadline and ask that we keep to it as practice… practice in professionalism. How will we ever be expected to meet submission deadlines, editing deadlines, a launch deadline if we cannot keep to our own blog schedule?

Woman looking into the fog.
Photo by Devin Justesen on Unsplash

Then my brain starts to hummmmm… maybe I shouldn’t be a writer, maybe I don’t have what it takes, why is my brain so foggy, maybe this is that pesky-peri-menopause thing again, perhaps this is all just too much, I’m letting everyone down…

I’ve known the due date for weeks… MANY weeks in truth. How? How did I fail to get it written?

I enjoy writing these blogs. Very much so.

I’ve got every excuse in the world and yet no perfect excuse. I knew the deadline. I saw it coming.

Sure, I was on vacation. Sure, I was busy caring for others, then pretending to care for myself. Sure, I was distracted by family obligations, a sudden health scare with a beloved family member, the completion of a memorial for a deceased furry loved one…

I was immobile, incapable, tongue tied… is this, dare I say, writer’s block? Read more

Riding the Query Coaster

Donna Judy Curtin Leave a comment

How is it almost June? JUNE! 

Now I ask you, fellow writer, considering we are half-way through the year, have you achieved your writing goals?

Photo by Conor Luddy on Unsplash

I haven’t.

At the outset of this year, I set a goal to start querying my Adult Speculative with Romance. The roller coaster that is querying began for me as I was propelled into querying, tricked in truth, into joining the line for a monstrous amusement park ride, the kind of ride that induces nausia, forcing me to lay out on the grass and ponder why on earth I would ever, ever to do that to myself. But somehow we forget and then find ourselves once again entering those line ups, too embarrassed to skip out at the last moment… but maybe we should. Read more

Mixing Solitude with the Camaraderie

Lori Twining 6 Comments
Lori Twining ~ Coffee at Sunrise
Lori Twining ~ Coffee at Sunrise, Elmhirst’s Resort

What writer wouldn’t love to disappear from their life and spend an entire week hidden away at a remote location? With no other obligations other than to put fingers to keyboard or pen to paper and tell a story. Maybe, a story no one will ever read? That’s a possibility. But hey, if you are a writer, you will have a strong desire to write that story whether someone reads it or not, right? 

Disappearing to a remote location sounds fantastic, especially after the tough year or two we have experienced. My doctor said I was becoming a workaholic, even though I’m working from home now, and I should take a mental health break. She said something like, “Take a vacation.”

In my mind, I watched her scribble a prescription on her pad for me:

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Thankfulness of a Writer

Lori Twining 2 Comments

A writer’s life is full of many solo hours of rolling around in doubt, heartache, heartbreak… and a few happy aha! moments, that ultimately make us smile and laugh as if we have been riding a standup rollercoaster for three hours straight, jumped off, puked and then screamed, “Let’s do that again!”

Thanksgiving is the perfect time to be reminded of just how thankful I am for being a writer with an active imagination, an anxious heart and a not-so-strong stomach. This kind of up and down rollercoaster feeling happens to me often. Daily, in fact. But without the puking. Mainly this happens because I struggle with the whole concept of “Do I know what I’m doing?” to “Of course, I know what I’m doing, I just sit down and write what I’m thinking, right?” Yeah, that doesn’t always work out as easily as it sounds.

Today is Thanksgiving, so as a writer I am thankful for many things…

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Truth About The Writer’s Million-Dollar Question

Lori Twining Leave a comment

This week a writing friend of mine, Colleen Winter, who is publishing her debut Sci-Fi Thriller novel, THE GATHERER in November 2019, sent me a text message:

HELP! I have a million-dollar question for you today. How is it that you give the appearance of being on social media a lot, but you say that you actually aren’t on very much? I’m trying to organize my life and could use some tips.

I chuckled, but understood the panic of trying to write a novel with a deadline, plus manage your social media accounts, plus be a mom, feed the kids, show up for your job in body, mind and in good spirit, shop for groceries, cook, eat, clean up… and the list goes on and on and on.

Here are some real truths that may or may not answer her million-dollar question:

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New Year’s Resolutions For Weird & Wonderful Writers

Lori Twining 1 Comment

Today is the last day of the year and we shouldn’t spend too much time crying about all the failed resolutions we didn’t follow through with over the past 364 days. Tonight at midnight will mark the moment of a fresh opportunity. We will have a clean slate for 2019. So, what can we do to make our new year as weird and wonderful as the unique souls that live within us?

I made a list of achievable goals specifically for writers ranging from quite simple to complicated tasks. You decide. I’m challenging you to pick one or two things off this list to push yourselves into becoming a happier creative person.

New Year’s Resolutions For Weird & Wonderful Writers:

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Your Novel Through the LENS of THEME

Donna Judy Curtin Leave a comment

The title of this blog was originally, ‘Deadlines be Dammed’, which sounds brash, but that isn’t what I needed to write.

I came across a Writer’s Digest course being offered by Paula Munier, called the Plot Perfect Bootcamp and something in the title called out to me.

Not to mention, I thoroughly enjoy sitting in a lecture room while Paula captivates her audience with her smile, her love of dogs and her bold encouragment to do better.

So, I signed up.

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The Best Writer’s Birthday Gift

Lori Twining 8 Comments

Every writer gets to celebrate one birthday every year. If you have a writer in your life, what do you get them?

Sure, writers love things like coffee, pens, highlighters, cake, wine, empty notebooks (cheap ones from the dollar store will do just fine), leather bound notebooks are awesome too (although most writers are afraid to write in them for fear of wrecking them), coffee, wine, dinner out somewhere, cake, coffee, maybe some more wine, definitely some more cake… but seriously, what is the one present a writer could receive, that would make them the happiest writer you know?

What is it? Read more