September 2014 archive

Finding Fiction in Real Life

“There are more bizarre stories in reality than any of us could imagine.” – J. Garth If I wrote a story about an elephant buried at a shopping mall in the United States, no one would believe the plot was plausible. And yet it’s true. In 1972, Little Jennie, an aging elephant with a traveling …

Continue reading

Overcoming Passive-Aggressive Writing

The feedback I received on my first submission to my friends in the Deadwood Writers group included many comments about my use of passive voice. Make that many, many, MANY comments.  After I highlighted every instance of the verb ‘to be,’ my pages lit up in yellow.  If I owned a color printer at the …

Continue reading

Inking Out First Impressions

No doubt, you already know how to add adjectives and adverbs to Mr. & Mrs. Fashion Forward’s outward appearance, so I will hold off on the physical aspects of first impressions – height, weight, color of eyes, etc. – until the end of this blog. And I am not going to discuss what it takes …

Continue reading

Write What You Know

When I first started writing for Deadwood Writers’ Voices a few months ago, I agonized over what I was going to write about. Then I went to California. There I read some letters that members of my family, who I’d heard about but never met, had written long ago. The letters brought them to life. …

Continue reading

Crowdfunding Your Writer Dreams

Did you know people would donate money to help publish your book? I’m not talking about a publishing house advance. I’m talking about regular people like the grocery store clerk, other writers and your favorite coffee shop barista.  These people believe in you and your project.  How is this possible, you ask?  It’s because of …

Continue reading