Jill, my protagonist in Norman in the Painting, has a fear of taking risks. She went to the university closest to her hometown although she was accepted in several that were in different states. She wasn’t afraid to leave her parents or to leave her few friends. The small town in the story is a […]
Victoria Zackheim’s FaithAnthology Book Reading in Berkeley
Victoria Zackheim & Contributors read from Zackheim’s anthology, Faith: Essays from Believers, Agnostics, and Atheists at Mrs. Dalloway’s Bookstore in Berkeley on February 25th. Zackheim is the author of the novel The Bone Weaver and the editor of five anthologies, the one before Faith was Exit Laughing. She writes documentary films and teaches creative nonfiction […]
Quote by Grandma Moses
A Good Day’s Work — Grandma Moses I look back on my life like a good day’s work, it was done and I feel satisfied with it. I was happy and contented, I knew nothing better and made the best out of what life offered. And life is what we make it, always has been, […]
Quote About Plans in Writing
Dwight D. Eisenhower said, “In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” I know Eisenhower was referring to preparing for battle, but to me, it works for writing as well. For plotters his quote could be interpreted as the plot that was planned might be useless, i.,e. […]
Quote by Charles Chigna
Charles Ghigna is an American poet and author of more than 100 books from Random House, Disney, Hyperion, Scholastic, Simon & Schuster, and more. The themes of his books and poetry reflect a celebration of childhood, as well as a reverence for nature and animals and also humor, holidays, riddles, seasons, school, sports, and the […]
Solve Writer’s Block and the Sagging Middle of a Novel
My previous post told how I was stuck in the sagging middle of my novel. I didn’t know how to get back into the rhythm after three months of writing Ekphrasis prose and poetry due the end of December. I’d imagined several ways to begin Chapter 15 and didn’t like any of the options. For […]
Writing the Sagging Middle of a Novel
In my previous novels (three sitting in the drawer, finished but unpublished), I didn’t worry about sagging middles. Aware of that syndrome from hearing other writers talk about it, I amped up the drama in the middle. No problem. In Norman in the Painting, my present WIP, I stopped writing the novel at the point […]