This morning saw the end of more than fifty hours of low, thick fog surrounding my house. By noon, the last traces of it disappeared, revealing a cold, gray sky. Weather forecasters said layers of snow created the fog. And the lack of any trace of sunlight for three days kept it in place. That […]
character
Show Me the Feelings!
Okay, you’re writing a scene for your main character. He’s returning to his hometown – he hasn’t been back since he ran away at age sixteen. “Mason drove down Main Street. It looked the same as it had the day he left town. The druggist had painted the front […]
The Writer is an Artist
You’re an artist. Did you know that? Of course you are. Writers use words as their paint and the pages of their manuscript as the canvas. I was thinking about how long it’s been since I lifted a paintbrush (not just the kind and size designed for painting kitchen cabinets and walls) and yearning to […]
The Man Behind the Dry Words
His obituary was dry and short. It named his surviving siblings, child, grand- and great-grandkids, and informed readers that he was a farmer and heavy equipment operator who loved barbeques and cookouts. Left unsaid were all the things that made him who he was. Like the fact that he came from a large family that […]
Time to Edit: Oh, the Joy!
My friend Emily Rattray Wenstrom recently wrote about her editing process. She described the first draft as the bones of her story, and later versions as being fleshed out and plumped up. I loved her description of discovering her characters and her setting anew as she began her first edit. That perfectly describes how I […]
Writing Deep: It’s Your Choice
Is it your greatest desire this year to write a best-selling book? Have you prowled the aisles of your local bookstore, searched Amazon’s top-10 list, read all the reviews in your Sunday newspaper – all in the interest of deciding just what you want to write? After all, your desire is not only to complete […]
Motivation Part 3: How do You Want to Feel?
This is the final installment in my “motivation” series. Here’s part one. And part two. Now that you’ve defined your life motivation, and discovered how that shaped the motivation for your career as a writer, how do you want to feel about that career? I mean, do you wish to bask in the accolades […]
Re-Imagining Characters: Finding Familiar Faces in New Places
It was exciting to watch the Steampunk Holmes: Legacy of the Nautilus Kickstarter counter climb from around 57% funding to 147% in the last 50 hours of the drive. With the additional monies, Richard Monson-Haefel hopes to bring the second book of the series, Steampunk Holmes: Frankenstein (working title) to readers a year earlier than […]