A dear writer friend of mine sent me David Michael Kaplan’s book called Revision; A Creative Approach to Writing and Rewriting Fiction. On page 5, he compares writers to musicians. A cellist or bel canto singer might have talent and craft, but without endless hours of practice. . . he’ll never get to Carnegie Hall.” Writers […]
Women’s National Book Association
Women’s National Book Association Board meeting is tomorrow with a pot luck to re-energize in making decisions for our next year’s activities. I’m the secretary and still write the minutes in my own made-up shorthand from years ago. For me, it’s faster than using a laptop. We like new members so if you’re interested, go […]
Romance Short Story Excerpt
In my last post about my anthology, I gave an example of a romance novel by Sharon Svitak called Simply Irresistible. Nalini Davison’s story, “Hot and Cool” is a romance short story. Here are a few paragraphs. “He paced back and forth in front of Claire. After a few minutes, he threw his arms skyward and […]
Writing Prompt in a Quote
Today I went with three of my long time friends to meet a mutual friend at Frank Coppola’s Winery Restaurant. We had an hour and a half drive from the south and the friend from the north had about 45 minutes to get there. Heavy, dark clouds followed us and a misty rain teased the […]
Writing Scenes with Gifts
How does your protagonist respond to gifts? If your book is a romance, you probably have a scene where the female protagonist receives a gift. How do you show her surprise, her shyness, her faking that she likes it, or her joy because it’s perfect? In a mystery or a thriller, does the criminal give […]
Author Sue Monk Kidd Quotes
Sue Monk Kidd’s The Invention of Wings has won the 2015 SIBA Book Award for Fiction. Nominated by Southern indie booksellers and readers and selected by a jury of Southern booksellers, SIBA Book Award winners “represent the best of Southern literature.” Sue Monk Kidd attended the Sarah and Angelina Grimke Day on May 5, 2015 […]
Weather in Fiction Can Create Sensory Disadvantage
One of my Facebook friends,Cynthia Helen Beecher read my post, “Using Fog in Writing” and told me about Oregon author, James Boyle, who had a reading in Healdsburg recently. Fog is one of the characters in his trilogy. I became a FB friend with him and in our chat, he said “Fog is a nice […]