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Lake Ontario is the smallest of the five Great Lakes by shoreline. But still, over 2 million New Yorkers live on Lake Ontario's shores. The lake occupies a distinct thermal regime, characterized by the formation of ice. Ice formation plays a distinct role in the area's heat balance, as it significantly reduced the ability of the water to absorb the sun's warmth.
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Complete understanding of any modern poem will not come after one reading. You might want to read through the poem once to get a general idea of what it's about. Don't try to figure it out the first time through. Consider the literal meaning of the poem then look at it for symbolic meaning. Think about the imagery and figurative language. There may even be multiple ways of interpreting a poem.
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I would write a million thank yous
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Did you know there was a Adirondack Center for Writing? Turns out you can get hired there a s a writer--or so their Web site implies. The Adirondacks is place of beauty and a rare piece of unspoiled wilderness in the Northeast United States. But the wildrenesss is rearely without mystery. For example, back in November 2020, Thomas Messick suddenly vanished when he was hunting deer in an area of wild forest near the town of Horicon in Warren County.
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Poetry and crime fiction may not seem like the most obvious pairing. Crime writing and poetry together usually find themselves embracing short sentences and the crisp imagery of innovative writing, and both have always had a flair for fierceness that can assail our senses. Even Agatha Christie published not one, but two poetry collections.
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In Cheat to Win, Connie learns her pre-approval inspection at Triple A Labs was suddenly and unexpectedly cancelled. This is highly unusual because the company's investigational new drug application is nearing approval.
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The cover for this story is taken from an World War II wartime poster produced by J. Howard Miller in 1943 for Westinghouse Electric as an inspirational image to boost worker morale. The poster was rediscovered in the early 1980s and widely reproduced in many forms, often called "You Can Do It!" but also called "Rosie the Riveter" after the iconic figure of a strong worker.
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Speakers of American English (notably in the Midwest and Deep South) use the word levee, from the French word levée. It originated in New Orleans a few years after the city's founding in 1718 and was later adopted by English speakers. The name derives from the trait of the levee's ridges being raised higher than both the channel and the surrounding floodplains.
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Emotions are messy things. You can tuck them away in your stories by alluding to them vaguely, pointing in their general direction, and hoping readers can imagine the rest? It would be so much easier to write, The vampire felt sad after he'd drained his victim's blood. But that's a little unimpressive, almost dreary. It's telling what the vampire feels, but readers are prickly. They refuse to believe whats written on the page. They're usually convinced only by what they're shown through description, action, and dialogue.
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It must reveal for our fled unity would be the Devil's world, surely as we reckon the devils of our world...
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For those who have been waiting to hold a book in your hands, Connie Murphy Mysteries Books 4-6 are now in paperback.
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When my brain cells are throbbing
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No collection for Christmas poems for 2021 would be complete without this next poem.
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My hops in this light 09:08 PM the electric patio bulb flattering their existence before the pitch black of my lawn.
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He misses his child's birth for more compelling reasons, she insists he rest with them in the birth bed. Still, this isn't enough, and she's okay with it.
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Is anything truly and sincerely right now...
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Connie Murphy strolled into the Food and Drug Administration's Long Island Resident Post after a week vacation sporting a golden tan and a good mood. That is, until she met the new supervisor.
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You've seen one, you've seen them all.
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I was exhausted
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The question of what the best science fiction book would be to hand a young reader to get them hooked on science fiction novels is an interesting one. Usually, I would expect that many teen readers nose around the sci fi genre after watching Fantasy movie series like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, and the classic sci fi movie series Matrix, Terminator, Star Wars and Hunger Games.
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There were lots of Boomers and X-rs
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I can deal with the ear hair.
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Suburban versus train rural county road anywhere North Dakota. All teenagers one "survivor" one brain-dead flower of hope to anyone but herself on life support.
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While my beloved dog
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A woman watches her next-door neighbor walk across the well-manicured lawn to greet a group of friends. This was a mistake. Why did I let Alice talk me into coming to this party? I'm not ready. I feel like everyone's staring at me. Like… that man over there.
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Time is the most important thing a reader gives you. Compared to the time investment, the cost of a book is a pittance. But life is short and when a reader gives you their time, that's a precious gift. A writer should never squander that.
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Several times in the book, Sasha describes her apartment in a fashionable area of St. Petersburg, Russia, which she completely renovated. It had beautifully restored mahogany trim, a luxurious bathroom, and upscale kitchen appliances. But how had Sasha been able to afford it on her salary? Granted, she was a DNA specialist, but such an apartment would have been beyond her reach. Sasha mentions that she bought the apartment with her inheritance. A hidden diary reveals some secrets and the source of the money.
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According to Wikipedia, "a road movie is a film genre in which the main characters leave home on a road trip, typically altering the perspective from their everyday lives." Frequently this involves exploring the theme of alienation . All this often enmeshed in a mood of actual or potential menace. All of which helps to create intimacy and tension between the characters.But this is only background for this story.
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Dogs may be more essential to a writer than a pen. Dogs and babies fall into the same category. Beyond the fact they are so darn cute… you never really know what they are thinking. They can't completely express what is running through their heads. As humans, we find it impossible not to express for them. To fill in the unspoken sentence, so to speak. But babies grow up. Dogs represent that unspoken covenant between the writer and the reader. As a writer, we can never really know what our readers are thinking. But when we make that connection between the author and the reader… there's nothing else like it. All you have to do to see the joy of that connection is look into the eyes of a dog when you figure out what it wants. Readers who connect with your stories have the same eyes.
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The most famous name associated with the search for immortality was the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León, Legend says that he was told by a native American that a fountain of youth could be found on the island of Bimini and that it would restore youth to anyone who drinks or bathes in its waters. The native was probably a poet.
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The children wanted to stay home and play,
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"Die, why won't you die?" Dr. Lermatov screamed, all control lost now. Sasha should have looked at his face, but all she could see was the scalpel glittering in his hand, then hand became fist, held high. But Lermatov wasn't looking at her. His gaze had swerved to her coworker and friend Alex.
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During World War I, British and German soldiers put down their weapons to celebrate the holiday spirit together, in a remarkable event known as "the Christmas Truce." All of them earned their blue stars and way too many earned sliver and glod stars as well.
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Should there be specialized Holloween celebrations in Greenwich and Dulwich? Should pigs stay away from Nottingham, Birmingham, and Buckingham? Is the only reason one comes to Cambridge is to cross the bridge? How many prople play chess in Winchester and Chester?
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The home in poetry can be a fabled, dreamed about place, the location of childhood remembrances, or the physical remainder of a days only recently past.
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This is the poem I wrote many years ago. It is made up of samples of the many different poetic forms but certainly not all of them. It was fun to do and I hope fun to read Attack of the Poetry Virus: A collection of poems inspired by "A Kick in the Head: An Everyday Guide to Poetic Forms" by Paul B. Janeczko.
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Everyone should begin by asking themselves what their actual values are, and then reflect on how they can let others live out their values. What kinds of social environments make it easier to be creative, to be honest, or to connect adventurously? We should all make a list of places where people find these things easier: camping trips, open-mics, writing groups, and so on. And then write a poem.
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I knew it would be today. I could feel it in my bones as the gray dawn streamed through my window this morning. My last morning. My last sunrise.
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Chapter 1 The Madonna's eyes beckoned. Such sparkle, drawing Sasha into the room even though the Madonna's rapturous gaze never left the infant Jesus in her arms. A soft light delineated the rubies circling her head, the alabaster of her skin, the pave jewels of her gown – the clearest blue diamonds Sasha'd ever seen. And yet…what was it? Something seemed…
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This new series by Kathryn Shay follows six firefighters, ten years after they became friends in their fire academy recruit days. Each book shows their strong connection, as well as the in-depth story of one of them. Each book also addresses a contemporary issue women face, including domestic abuse, death of a spouse, divorce, blending family with career, discrimination in the workplace, and pursuing a new path in life.
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Now you try. Here's a word spill. Using as many of these words and your own words write several Cinquain. The more you practice, the better. As soon as you get the hang of this form, you will begin to create your own, representing what you're experiencing in your day to day life, using images from nature to connect to human nature, like Haiku.
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I sure hope that feller didn't have a lot of enemies; Lord knows I had more than a few myself. I was wanted in 3 states for stage robbin' and such. I ain't never killed anybody before though I got blamed for it once. I didn't even kill this feller either, he kinda killed hisself through ignorance, I just failed to enlighten him of certain vital knowledge I happen to possess.
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"Sir," Private Baker threw a quick salute as he ran towards Captain McLain. "We ran into some old guy up the trail a bit. He started shouting and waving when he spotted us." Captain Mark McLain pulled off his helmet, scratched his closely cropped hair and growled, "Well, what the hell do you think you should do about it? You know the orders. Our boys and the Brits are landing in Italy somewhere along the Amalfi coast in a few days. We can't take the chance that he'll tell the krauts there's a platoon of US Army Rangers roaming around Calabria, prepping for the invasion."
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Lately, I've had more than one story in the works at the same time—a separate notebook for each one, or more precisely, a loose pile of notes and reference material that aspires to, one day, assemble itself into a coherent narrative.
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In Dark as Chocolate, food poisoning of a former high school classmate leads FDA Investigator Connie Murphy to inspect Morerich Chocolates. On the surface, Morerich appears to be following the regulations, but she soon discovers the company is hiding illness complaints about their Delightfully Delicious candy bars. As Connie continues to dig deeper, she gets entangled in economic fraud and drug smuggling, and her efforts culminate in kidnapping and attempted murder. Read a sample of Connie Murphy #4, Dark as Chocolate
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…the musings of a "empty nest" father, written one lazy afternoon in 1997 while visiting his daughter in Cleveland. It is, I believe, a timeless piece for any parent when the children move out.
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The average person rarely needs to worry much about punctuation beyond a few basics. For the most part, those we communicate with don't care if the punctuation is off as long as they understand what we've written. Once we go beyond everyday communication and enter the world of business, clarity of meaning becomes more important.
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I also write a lot of memoir. The following, Dad's Wooden Rabbit, was a challenge to write something from the past, but do it in the present tense. I didn't think I could do it, but the challenge presenter gave me a big thumbs up for accomplishing the task.
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Yesterday's Muse Inc. is an independent used and rare bookseller that has been in operation for over 10 years. We opened our first 'brick and mortar' storefront in December of 2008 in our hometown of Webster, NY.
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One of the most famous writing challenges was between C.L. Moore, A. Merritt, H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and Frank Belknap Long. It was called the Challenge from Beyond. In this writing exercise, the writers each wrote one short section that ended in such a way as to leave the next author in a difficult spot. Now we present the LCRW Writing Challenge - 2020 Round Robin. But I won’t spoil the ending.
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Daily life looks very different, and this pandemic has impacted everybody in some way. You are not alone in what you are facing. The fears that rise to the surface are felt by billions of people around the world. We are all in this together. Even though the storm is raging right now, famous poet Maya Angelou once said, "Every storm runs out of rain."
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Flash fiction is a short work that still offers character and plot development. Identified varieties, many of them defined by word count, include the six-word story; the 280-character story (also known as "twitterature"); the "dribble" (also known as the "minisaga," 50 words); the "drabble" (also known as "microfiction," 100 words); "sudden fiction" (750 words); flash fiction (1,000 words); and "micro-story."
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I am a regular contributor at Carrot Ranch Literary where Charli Mills offers a weekly prompt to anyone who wants to participate. We write 99 words, no more, no less, flash fiction stories. Each October we "Rodeo" meaning the prompts are more challenging, specific, and often have twists to them. They are meant to stretch our writing chops and make us, the authors, get out of our comfort zones to try something different.
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Meetings are the most universal — and universally despised — part of business life. But bad meetings do more than ruin an otherwise pleasant day. There are real stakes: bad meetings make bad companies. In businesss, People don't take meetings seriously. They arrive late, leave early, and spend most of their time doodling. People wander off the topic. Good meetings aren't just about work. They're about fun — keeping people charged up.
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Rick Iekel sends us a timely piece that we are going to Grandfather in...
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An advice column for writers, poets, and wordsmiths who go bump in the page.
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The internet should reward quality thinking, not clickbait. Medium says they have created a better home for writers, journalists and experts. It's simple to use, free from ads, and connects you to curious, avid readers, so you can focus on what matters: putting your best work out there.
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Polka-dots Make the Day More Normal In 1962, DC Comics introduced Polka-Dot Man with irregularly-sized and differently coloured dots. The Venezuelan fashion designer Carolina Herrera also used polka dots on most of her dresses during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Much of the Japanese artist's Yayoi Kusama's work features a polka dot motif. The Polka Dot Door is a Canadian children's television series produced from 1971 to 1993 or…
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Most published authors didn't worry about a single opening sentence; they just started telling the stories. There has to be a beginning. May of these opening indicate time and place, introducing a character. But almsot across the board, what the authors do is to provide a descriptiont.
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It's the written word that counts right? Who cares about audiobooks? Right now audiobook sales are poised to overtake paperback book sales by the year 2023. At that point, eBook sales will have dropped to number three, after paperback book sales. So, if you are not thinking about turning your book into an audiobook, you are simply leaving money on the table.
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One More Place for Inspiring Pictures Here's one more site on the Internet so provide you with interesting pictures that could act as prompts for stories… especially for you Mystery and History writers.
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The Reason It's So Hard to Spot Your Own Typos Have you ever typed an email, only to return to it and discover, to your mounting horror, that you've written "tahn" instead of "than?" There's a good reason why we're so terrible at catching these typing errors, and it has to do with our brains being a little too efficient.
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On 21 August 1835, The New York Sun published a series of articles about the discovery of life on the moon. These were falsely attributed to a well-known astronomer of the time named Sir John Herschel. The article reported Herschel had made these discoveries and went on to describe, in detail, how the discovery was made. Well, if New York papers can do it, so can we. Here is the completely fictitious and utterly made-up history of LCRW.
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Charles Dickens only to find a publisher to get any of his works out. But in the 21st Century we can publish our own works. The following is a companion piece to the excellent presentation we had in October 2020.
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Publishing News September 2020 If a tough month to get noticed if you're publishing anything besides Political Non-fiction, but there are still a few things going on. Here's a collection of news items from the publishing world for September.
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Allostatic load is "the wear and tear on the body" which accumulates as an individual is exposed to repeated or chronic stress. The psychological term was coined back in 1993. It represents the physiological consequences of chronic exposure to... well quite frankly everything going wrong at once. This includes writer's block.
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So you want to write a novel? 8 bestselling authors tell you how One of the most common questions I get asked by friends, family and readers is, "What advice do you have for someone who wants to write a novel?"
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Ever pass by sections of the bookstore you always avoid? Next time you go to the bookstore, you might want to pick out something from those sections. After all, what would Columbus have found if he'd just kept sailing in the same directions all the time? Or Leif Erikson? Why be like Alexander and believe there are no new worlds to conquer?
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Change caused by the Pandemic certainly become a topic for people to write about. It was top of the news a century ago. Everyone thought it would change the way we wrote books.
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The UK has a site dedicated to offer plenty of opportunity for women to submit thier work... and they even pay for it. Mslexia is read by top authors and absolute beginners. A quarterly masterclass in the business and psychology of writing, it's the essential magazine for women who write.
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Getting Your Name Out There -- Part One Over the course of watching some of the great ebook authors operate, it's easy to conclude that they stick out because they aren't following the basics of self-advertisement. They are doing things differently. In a market that you may consider saturated, you might be thinking: "Well, I can't afford Google ads and everyone doesAmazon, so I really don't know where to start with getting my name out there." Let's change that today.
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Pro tips for writing and publishing speculative fiction All fiction is speculative to some extent, posing a “what-if” question, which serves as the premise and drives the plot. But for fantasy author Kij Johnson, winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Award, the specific genre of speculative fiction adds its own special writing challenges: “A brilliant speculative story is harder to write than a brilliant realistic story, because it must do all the same things mainstream literature does – characterization, language, theme, and all the rest – and also, it needs to meet the requirements of the genre: accurate science, plausible worldbuilding, and the physiological triggers essential to a horror story.” |
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Book writing service gives veterans a way to preserve their stories Story Terrace is giving vets a discount so that they can write books based on their lives and experiences. The company is calling it the "Speak and Listen" campaign. "My grandfather was in the resistance in the Netherlands (in WWII), and I regret not recording his stories," says Story Terrace CEO Rutger Bruining. "That's why I think it's really important for the entire family that these stories are kept and retold, so people remember what happens." |
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Are These Bad Habits Creeping Into Your Writing? Many writers rely more heavily on pronouns than I’d suggest is useful. For me this sort of thing comes under the heading Remember that Writing Is Not Speaking. When we talk, we can usually make ourselves understood even amid a flood of vague “he”s and “she”s. On the page, too many pronouns are apt to be confounding. |
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How to Write a Novel: A 12-Step Guide You may be surprised to know that even after writing over 190 books (two-thirds of those novels) over the last 40 years, 21 of them New York Times bestsellers (most notably the Left Behind Series), I deal with those exact problems every time. So how do I overcome them and succeed? |
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Not sure where to send those great short stories you’ve written? As with writing contests and fellowships, sometimes it can be hard to know where to begin. To help you figure out where to submit short stories, we’ve put together this guide to 23 publications that publish short fiction... |
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31 Free Writing Contests: Legitimate Competitions With Cash Prizes When I was about 12, I saw an ad in a magazine for a poetry contest that sounded fancy and impressive, something like “International Library of Poetry.” I bled poetry at that age, so I crossed my fingers and sent in a poem I’d been slaving over for weeks. |
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Free Writing Contests is your source for a listing of 2019 writing contests that you can enter. The largest collection of writing contests - hand-picked for writers of all skill levels. Your online location for an updated list of writing contests from around the world delivered daily. |
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What Are The Ways To Format An e-Book for Kindle You feel all the satisfaction, but there is still something that has you didn’t do, and that is publishing the book and recei... |
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Want To Write A Memoir? Start Writing Your Story It seems everyone is writing their memoirs today. Whether you sell yours to a publisher or self-publish it, you might wonder what the difference is between writing your memoir or just your story? It’s in the focus. |
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BookBub is a free service that helps millions of readers discover limited-time deals on acclaimed ebooks. Members receive a personalized daily email alerting them to the best free and deeply discounted titles matching their interests as selected by our editorial team. BookBub can be used with all major ebook retailers and devices. |
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How to Crowdfund Your Writing With Patreon Many writers dream of quitting their day jobs and becoming full-time freelancers. And while that is achievable, it’s a difficult prospect for poets, playwrights and midlist fiction writers. Writing organizations such as the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America consider a minimum professional rate for fiction to be six cents a word. Many novels only receive advances of $5,000–$10,000. |
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How to Write a Video Game Story My first attempt at writing a video game script begins with the socialist journalist and activist Marina Ginesta, a remarkabl... |
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Each week, I’ll offer a writing tip you can take and apply to your WIP to help improve it. They’ll be easy to do and shouldn’t take long, so they’ll be tips you can do without taking up your Sunday. Though I do reserve the right to offer a good tip now and then that will take longer—but only because it would apply to the entire manuscript. |
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Make Big Money Writing Fiction Recently my friend Charlie Martin wrote a post about how ebooks are a complete game changer for publishing, a fact that traditional publishers are still bent on denying. In fact, for the last ... |
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How to Write a Novel: A 12-Step Guide You may be surprised to know that even after writing over 190 books (two-thirds of those novels) over the last 40 years, 21 of them New York Times bestsellers (most notably the Left Behind Series), I deal with those exact problems every time. So how do I overcome them and succeed? |
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‘Dreyer’s English’ is a witty and useful writing guide Some of his advice is aimed specifically at people who write fiction, but overall the book ... age of ten who is not actively ... |
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Writing Advice from Saul Bellow Bellow is still the only writer to have been awarded the National Book Award for Fiction three times—he also nabbed a Pulitzer, a National Medal of Arts, and of course, the Nobel Prize... |
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Choctaw historian at KU restoring cultural knowledge through fiction The prolific author juggles her time between being a professor, writing (both fiction and nonfiction), and advocating for healthy eating in the Native American community, among many other interests. Mihesuah, a Choctaw historian, is KU’s Cora Lee Beers Price Teaching Professor in International Cultural Understanding. Her 17th book,..
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Punch Up the Volume in Your Writing Let your brain imagine the sounds. Your writing needs sonic textures. Lucky for me, the MFA program let us take poetry and fiction workshops. So I spent a lot of time in coffee shops reading ... |
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Keep it short on new-age medium with new-age writing Flash fiction can be considered a prototype to ... pen-wielders who easily lose heart from the novel or story they begin writing, Instagram poetry and ttt is just the thing for you. |
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6 Ways That Fanfiction Makes Your Writing Stronger It works in the realm of original fiction just as well—if you’re writing within a universe you’ve already invented, you are doing precisely the same work as if you’re writing prompt fanfic, with the ... |
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At first glance the website seems but a simple collecting point for local authors who might otherwise only be found on Amazon or discovered at some random book signing event. You won’t find big name authors, but a growing list of largely unknown local authors from cities across the country. Like you, they have dreamed of, written and published stories near and dear to their hearts. |
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Get Amazing SFF Reads (for Free!) Tor.com is home to an award-winning short fiction program, with over a decade of weekly stories for science fiction, fantasy, and horror fans to enjoy. We want to make reading our stories even easier by offering a brand new short fiction-only newsletter. Subscribers will get two months’ worth of short fiction delivered to their inboxes in multiple digital formats on a bimonthly basis |
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How To Use Strong Verbs To Sharpen Your Writing If you want to learn the precise difference between the terms strong and weak verbs, it can be a little confusing. There are a few ways to determine the strength of verbs. There is a linguistic basis, the simple contrast between active and static verbs as well as a literary definition. In a general sense, action verbs are strong, and we use them to make verbs more interesting. |
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How To Promote A Book Online In 4 Clearly Explained Steps If you self-publish, you need a plan to promote your book online. If you want to succeed at self-publishing, you are on your own. Writing a great book is one thing, but selling it is another. Amazon, Apple, Kobo and all the other ebook and book retailers are not going to promote your books. |
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Tips to help you write fantasy, from author Melinda Salisbury Because the object of fiction is to make the reader forget themselves for a little while. Think of writing a book as a game you’re playing with a reader – you can only win if they stop living in the ... |
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Two Australian books were published last year about a brutal murder that happened in Melbourne in 1930: the non-fiction A Scandal in Bohemia: The Life and Death of Mollie Dean by Gideon Haigh, and The Portrait of Molly Dean, Katherine Kovacic’s first novel. |
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Help an author (and fellow readers) by posting a thoughtful book review online One of the most generous things you can do for the author of a book is to write a review and post it on Amazon.com or ... |
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Tell Me a Smart Story: On Podcasts, Videos, and Websites as Writing Assignments About two years ago at my university, I designed a minor in the medical humanities. At its core was a class that introduced students to medical topics from the perspectives of the humanities and social sciences. When it came to designing assignments that would show how well they understood such varied concepts, I decided to go out on a pedagogical limb... |
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How to Write Your Novel in a Single Month There are so many ways to write a novel. I’ve talked about how if you’re pressed for time, you can always find 10 to 20 minutes a day and write a little bit. If you write 200 words a day, you can complete a novel in just one year! |
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How To Write Your First Novel In Your 40s With Linda Holmes If you know NPR’s Linda Holmes, it’s probably not as a novelist. She’s a public radio pop culture correspondent, she co-hosts NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast and her recalcitrant dog Brian is ... |
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Prosopagnosia or The Value of a Nametag Have you ever gone to a class, of any kind, and been asked to wear a name tag? What was your reaction? Did you think it was silly because you were never going to see those people again, or you didn't like being treated like a child. I hate to admit I've had those same thoughts. Now think about how good it makes you feel when you walk into a meeting, or restaurant, and someone calls you by name. It makes you feel good, like you are valuable and you have something to offer or gain by being there. |
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The Expert’s Guide to Writing Book Recommendation Lists It is as inevitable as the green sky above us, the annual migration of the giant oak trees, and the monthly return of the ... |
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Top 10 tips on writing a first novel by Gaby Koppel Having just released her debut novel Reparation, Gaby Koppel wants to inspire other budding authors. She's poured her heart and soul into this emotional tale, and is now here with ten essential pieces of advice for when it comes to her fellow writers publishing their first novel. |
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7 Things Separate Those Who Write That Book Inside Them From Those Who Only Dream About It's something many dream of. Ask around your office who wants to write a book someday, to share (and monetize) their knowledge, and you'll be astonished. I've written several business books and I remember an editor telling me: "80 percent want to write a book--only a fraction actually do." |
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20 Inspiring Writing Podcasts to Subscribe to Right Now For writers looking to bust writer’s block, hone their craft or spice up a boring commute, there’s no shortage of podcasts from amateurs and experts alike. Here, we’ve compiled 20 writing-related podcasts worth subscribing to ... |
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8 Tips For Writing A Mystery Novel There are so many different sub-genres of mystery. You’ve got your cozy mystery, you’re courtroom drama, whodunit stories, and much more. Which sub-genre does your mystery fall under? Sure, you can mix them up, but it always helps to define what kind of mystery you’re writing about. |
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The Only Book You Need if You Want to Write a Nonfiction Book Writing a book can be one of the smartest things you do for your career if you're a professional, CEO, or entrepreneur. More and more successful professionals are realizing this. Most are also realizing that the purpose of these books is not to be "bestsellers" or to sell millions of copies. Instead, the purpose of these books are to powerfully speak to their niche audience, to get high-priced clients, or to position themselves or their business differently. |
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The writer’s goal is to evoke emotion. To ensure the audience smiles laughs, cries, becomes angry or hurts for the characters that they’ve created and the storyline they’ve developed. All writers/authors hope to fulfill this role successfully. Success can mean many things; dollars as in unit sales, emails from fans, parents reaching out and aspiring writers looking for tips and advice, book signings, and paid speaking engagements. |
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How to Get the Most Out of National Novel Writing Month Embrace your messy first draft and commit to NaNoWriMo’s boot-camp vibe. Four years ago, Jasmine Guillory was an aspiring novelist with an idea and an outline, but she was stuck in a creative rut. When a friend asked if she would be up for a writing challenge of putting 50,000 words down in one month, she immediately said yes. |
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"The book was difficult" - Kelly-Eve Koopman on writing 'Because I Couldn't Kill You' Before writing this book, I was not a fan of creative non-fiction. I put fiction on a pedestal. When I started writing the memoir I realised how close fiction and memory are and how they can be one and the same thing. I am a South African, born just shy of free. You'd think I'd realise how easily fabricated narratives become history. For me the experience of navigating through the personal was a lot like this. I felt like a magpie of my own consciousness, scavenging through things. |
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Don’t you just hate writer’s block? Some say it’s a disease that only creative workers succumb to. Some say it’s a curse. Others argue that it doesn’t exist at all. But just about everyone has been there–sitting in front of a blank screen, fingers itching to create a masterpiece. And nothing happens. |
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Book Writing and Screenwriting Parallels Storytelling is Storytelling! “Trust your own instinct. Your mistakes might as well be your own, instead of someone else’s.” – Billy Wilder |
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How to write accents and dialects: 6 tips Learn how to write accents and dialects in your stories because it will help you write about crosscurrents between people and places. Regional dialects help to convey a sense of local character speech in stories. |
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New Venue to Showcase My Books According to their website "Hometown Reads is digital author platform focused on showcasing books from local authors across the United States. We want to highlight authors in their hometowns, while inspiring local readers to discover hidden treasures in their hometown. We desire to create a collaborative author community, where authors exchange local book marketing advice, engage in cross-promotion of one another, and network with community organizations." |
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BarbaraHelene Smith published Death by Dysfunction, the first in the Connie Murphy Mystery series. Connie is an FDA investigator, who is dedicated to protecting public safety. While conducting seemingly routine inspections ... |
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BarbaraHelene Smith just published Sidelined by Steroids. The second Connie Murphy Mystery e-book, available on Amazon.com. |
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15 Smart Writing Tips For Crafting Copy That Sticks To help you do this well, 15 members of Forbes Communications Council gave us their tips for writing short, quick copy that will stick with your audience long after they've read it. Follow their tips to improve your marketing copywriting. |
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How To Write A Mystery That Will Knock Them Dead Good mysteries are also good novels. They have memorable characters, an exciting plot, lively dialogue and writing that "shows" instead of "tells". |
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Short Story Hacks: 10 Tips to Improve Your Creative Writing Seton Hill University is a liberal arts university in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. Formerly a women's college, it became a coeducational university in 2002 and enrolls about 2,200 students. Dennis G. Jerz is a Associate Professor of English–New Media Journalism and this is from his blog. It's the winner of the 2011 Best Academic Weblog / John Lovas Memorial Weblog Award. |
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Hints on How to Create Characters Did you ever ride a bus to school? It's not the bus that is important, nor the trip, it's your fellow students. If you didn't ride a bus, sit for a minute and go up and down the rows of your classroom, at different ages, and maybe from different schools. These school mates are the fodder for any character you want to include in any writing you may do. How so? |
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Writing Spy Fiction with an Unputdownable Plot When you’re writing spy fiction you have one overriding goal: to keep the reader turning the pages. There’s no greater compliment to the spy thriller author than for their readers to say ‘I couldn’t put it down.’ But how can we keep the reader engrossed? How many supposed thrillers have you abandoned because you lost interest in them? |
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Dialogue is a wonderful way to show characterization, and also the relationships between your characters. Not only what people say, but the way they say it, gives the reader quality information about your character. |
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Adding Spice With Sentence Variety Sometimes what we read is a simple statement, followed by another simple statement followed by…. You get the picture. It is boring reading that does not bring the reader into your story. Often I can show examples where combining two consecutive statements into one sentence makes for a much better read. That is not a cure, but it does get you started. Try it. Read OUT LOUD what you originally wrote, then the combined sentences. I think you will find they are much more engaging. (I strongly suggest you read or have read to you, your story out loud. You will catch many awkward sentences you just read over) |
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Long Live Short Fiction: The New Golden Age of the SFF Novella Technically a Novella is 17,500 to 39,999 words, or just short of a novel. Once a stepchild of the more popular novel, it is now back in vogue. At least according to Tor Books. But don't believe me, read the article. |
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One of the most famous writing challenges was between C.L. Moore, A. Merritt, H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and Frank Belknap Long. It was called the Challenge from Beyond. In this writing exercise, the writers each wrote one short section that ended in such a way as to leave the next author in a difficult spot. Robert E. Howard had to write after H. P. Lovecraft. The author of The Call of Cthulhu and Other Dark Tales changed the protagonist into a huge, pale-green, loathsome centipede. What Howard does with this is not only inspiring but pure genius. But I won’t spoil the ending. |
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The myth of an author sitting quietly in their room and emerging with a completed book is about as big a myth as seeing Bigfoot in your living room. Writing is an arduous skill to master, and even the most gifted writers can use the help of the right kind of editor. |
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"Don't preoccupy yourself, don't fret, don't tear hair, don't pull off your shirt in tatters because you've missed comma, because you have a run-on sentence, because you've split an infinitive." Here are some more words of writing advice from Rod Serling... |
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Right across the still -cold lake from us (Okay, you might have to go a little to the east) you'll run into Belleville, Ontario. There you'll find the Belleville Public Library Writers' Collective. They've gone virtual. |
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Holding Effective Remote Meetings Don't forget to test all technology (including camera/video, Wi-Fi, and screen sharing) before the meeting. Use the "Buddy System." Zoom is free. Set up a meeting with one other person in LCRW in advance. That way you can both test out how well your device works before the group meeting starts. Remember Zoom works on smartphones and iPads too! |
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How do I add Grammarly for Microsoft Office to Word and Outlook? Are you are writer? Want to make sure your writing is error-free and easy to read? An online grammar checker and proofreading tool like Grammarly can help avoid embarrassing typos and grammatical errors. You can use it to make sure your book, article or blog post is accurate and easy to read. |
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Sources of Photos for Commercial Use Illustrating your book and website articles can be challenging. But using websites where you can find photos that are royalty free for commercial use is very helpful. You can use the photos as they are or use image software to change them into something new. |
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A review of Word’s F7 key function A grammar editor is a software facility that highlights errors in a text and suggests correct word choices and fixes misspellings. Most of these owe their existance to the first spell-check system, developed by a group of six linguists from Georgetown University in the late 1970s for the IBM 360 mainframe computer. |
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When we list three, four, or more things in a sentence, (How's that for showing, not telling?) standard English rules allow the last comma in the series (sometimes referred to as the "Oxford comma") to be optional. The writer may elect either to include it or to leave it out. |
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Why You Can’t Use Song Lyrics in Your Fiction One of the issues I frequently encounter is the use of song lyrics in fiction. The short is that song lyrics are protected by copyright and you cannot use someone else’s song lyrics without permission from the copyright holder. |
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How to use the Window’s Voice Recorder App If you need to record audio on your PC, Windows 10 provides you with the Voice Recorder app. It's built in to the Opearting System. Here's how to use it. Voice Recorder is a simple application to record sound, and the only thing you need is a microphone. |
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In an increasingly crowded market, it can be difficult to get noticed—and thus, reviewed—on sites like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Goodreads. And paid review services can be expensive, adding to the already significant financial strain many encounter when self-publishing a book. So, what's the alternative? |
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Well, we've just had May 4th ... or in some circles Star Wars Day (May the Fourth be With You.) If you're like this auther, it brings back memories. Sometimes a writers journey is from a Galaxy not so far away. Every now and then it's from Pennsylvania (Our neighbor state to the south.) |
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A story's setting carries an enormous weight in fiction because it helps put the reader into your imaginary world. It enables them to travel from their personal experiences to enter your world. Leaving out the setting is like attempting to drive a car with a blindfold on… you can expect the diver to imagine the road… but it won't work out well. |
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With the coronavirus pandemic, eBook has business boomed The pandemic has caused an abrupt, massive shift in consumer behavior. Leisurely in-person browsing is on hiatus indefinitely. Although with most physical stores in the United States are closed, book sales overall have been up in April, according to market research company the NPD Group. The bookselling business has changed amidst the stay-at-home orders brought by Covid-19. "The book market has historically performed well during times of economic downturn, and our first six weeks have shown us that there is unlikely to be a catastrophic cliff in demand for books," NPD industry analyst Kristen McLean wrote, noting that book sales grew almost every year during the Great Recession. |
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The 5 Biggest Fiction Writing Mistakes (& How to Fix Them) The best fiction writers write like they're in love—and edit like they're in charge. First drafting should be a wild and wonderful ride, full of discovery, dreams and promises. But at some point you have to settle down and make the book really work. You need to approach your manuscript with sober objectivity and knowledge of the craft. |
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Now that we are spending more time at home, chances are you're spending more time surfing the internet. So, how can you find places to help you with your writing? In this article, you'll find places to visit to help you answer these questions as well as a few places that are downright fun to visit. Including finding a place containing Mark Twain's famous editing advice: "Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very'; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be." |
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Apple renews effort to induce authors to publish with Apple Books Eight years after it released tools to make what were then called iBooks, Apple has launched Apple Books for Authors, a new effort to get writers publishing on its platform. Then producing books for Kindle was reasonably simple — reasonably — whether you were an established publisher or an individual author. While there was and is more to it, broadly if you can produce a PDF of your book, you can publish it. |
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