Of Titles and Sound Bites
A title says a lot about a person. If you use the wrong prefix, better watch out. Address a woman as Mrs. instead of Ms, her hackles could rise. Confuse a five star General with a General Factotum, and the…
Category: Writing Advice
Friday Feast: Rules, Social Media, Ideas and Instinct
Recently, I told a friend that I’d spill all my social media and writing secrets in exchange for a steak dinner. She told me that was worth TWO steak dinners. You can save some dough and calories by reading posts from…
Whatever Happened to Foreplay?
This from Writer’s Digest: “How To Start a Novel Right.” (June 6, 2013) Including backstory in the opening pages is the same as saying to the reader, “Wait a minute—hold on. Before I tell you the story, first there’s something…
Friday Feast: Ratings, Addicts, Classics and Bad Words
Mmm, urgh, enm. So many goodies out there on the interwebs this week, friends. Feast upon some of our favorite links for the week! Book Rating Categories That Should Exist (Because Star Ratings Can Be Useless) by Natalie Meyer. My 5-star book…
The Goals of Writing from Modest to Spectacular
In one of my (as yet unpublished) novels, two best friends in their middle years set out to write their own novel to solve their respective problems. Aside from a general agreement that the end product will be a work…
Traffic, Kevlar, and a Critique
When I first started taking writing classes, my friends would ask what they were like. I would explain in a lighthearted voice that the classes were centered around the discussion of someone’s work – the good, the bad, the indifferent….