Scrivener’s Shot Gun Wedding With Pro-Writing Aid
My most useful writing tools are Scrivener and Pro-Writing Aid. Most writers have heard of Scrivener, a powerful word processing program that orders and organizes the screaming voices in your writer’s head, helping you to pump out your stories. There are too many features in this program to write...
The Art of #Writing: How To Finish a Book
Now, not to disparage those writers that have spent the last four decades polishing their magnum opus, but there comes a time to finish a book. Like a relationship gone bad, it’s a bit ripe and it’s time to move on already. Aren’t there other stories you want to...
The Craft of Writing: One Story Telling Error in The Water Diviner
Recently, I shuffled out of my writer’s cave and went with a friend to see Russell Crowe’s debut directorial effort, The Water Diviner. The critics are split on how well he did: It’s clear that Russell Crowe has poured his heart and soul into the historical romance The Water...
The Craft of Writing: One Story Telling Error in The Water Diviner
Recently, I shuffled out of my writer’s cave and went with a friend to see Russell Crowe’s debut directorial effort, The Water Diviner. The critics are split on how well he did: It’s clear that Russell Crowe has poured his heart and soul into the historical romance The Water...
Flash Fiction Challenge: Ten Random Sentences
Chuck Wending’s flash fiction challenge was to pick one of ten random sentences and write a story incorporating it. The sentences were great and it was hard to chose one. “The mysterious diary records the voice.” “The stranger officiates the meal.” “The shooter says goodbye to his love.” “A...
Book Review: Strange Magic–A Yancy Lazarus Tale
Note: Strange Magic was given to me by the author as an Advance Release Copy in exchange for an honest review. Yancy Lazarus is having a bad day: there’s a bullet lodged in his butt cheek, his face looks like the site of a demolition derby, and he’s been...
Wendig’s Flash Fiction Challenge: Merry’s Christmas Tale
Chuck Wendig’s challenge was to write a piece of holiday horror. Well, I’ve been busy, really busy, so I’m trotting out a piece I wrote last Christmas for someone’s call for flash submissions. It is the first piece about Merry, who we saw in my piece The Good Girl....
NaNoWriMo Update: NaNo Meetup & Progress!
Last night I met up with a half-dozen of my NaNoWriMo confederates at a well known coffee shop in my hometown. That’s three of them right there. Because I barely got them to agree to a picture (introverted writers!) I promised not to use their names. Organized by the...
NaNoWriMo Update: Arekan’s War & Pizza Cake
Day 11 into NaNoWriMo at 9,500 words in I am seriously behind. Life happens. Kids have birthdays and there is pizza cake to make. Why pizza cake? It is a new thing. Some restaurant chain in Canada came up with the idea, and it spread into the U. S....
The Craft of Writing: NaNo In The Morning & Cover Art
Not being a young person, I wake early, anywhere from 2:00 A.M. to 5:00 A.M. I get much of much of my writing done before the sun shows its perkily cheery face in the morning. I don’t drink coffee for health reasons, so all of this is powered my...