Recently I attended a Mid-Michigan RWA Chapter meeting where the program was on editing. The speaker, Dr. Diana Stout, MFA PhD, is one of MMRWA’s members and besides being a writer has taught college English for several years. During the meeting, she covered punctuation from comma rules to words to avoid. Lately, I’ve noticed an […] [ ... ]
Wishing Everyone a very HAPPY THANKSGIVING Thursday I will be enjoying Thanksgiving dinner with my son and daughter and their families. This is the holiday I enjoy the most…no pressure to buy gifts, or cards, or candy Just a time to be thankful, and I am thankful for… A loving husband two children and their spouses […] [ ... ]
I recently received the advanced reading copy of my March 2017 thriller, Echoes of Terror. It has been a while since I read through the manuscript, and since I’m sending some copies out for review, I wanted to make sure there were no glaring errors. Actually, I didn’t want any errors, glaring or not, but, […] [ ... ]
Last week I wrote about “Publishing Then and Now.” This week I want to focus on “Now.” Writers nowadays, both published and pre-published, have three basic options. Writers can go with traditional publisher, print-on-demand publishers, or Independent self-publishing. Each choice has advantages and disadvantages. First Option Let’s assume you’ve written a fantastic book. If you […] [ ... ]
A few weeks ago Barbara Vortman posted a comment on my blog. She said, “I remember when your first book was published. Can you tell us how marketing has changed since then and how you adapted? I have never been a self-promoter and I detest the job. My novel will languish forever on Amazon because […] [ ... ]
In the last six months three writer friends have given me their new books to read. Since writers are always looking for reviews, I read the books with the idea of giving each a review. I wondered, however, what I should do if I didn’t like a book. Did I really want to give a friend […] [ ... ]
Last weekend I opened an e-book that I purchased about five years ago. Save the Cat is a non-fiction book about screenwriting written by Blake Snyder (who is a screenwriter). It’s also a book that is often mentioned by writers when talking about writing. The first chapter of Save the Cat is about loglines, and the […] [ ... ]
Back in 1997 Silhouette published Heiress Seeking Perfect Husband under their Yours Truly line. I loved the story. It’s a “You have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find Prince Charming” type of story and is probably the most humorous one I’ve ever written. When the publisher dropped that line, my agent was […] [ ... ]
On Saturday, October 8, 2016, I will be at the Bloomingdale Branch of the Van Buren District Library from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. At 1:00 p.m. I will be talking about my books, writing, and the various ways of getting published. If you don’t live on the west side of Michigan, you may never […] [ ... ]
It would be so nice if all a writer needed to do was write. But, of course, life isn’t that easy. On September 20th I had surgery on the middle finger of my right hand (and yes, I’m right handed), which resulted in a week of one-finger typing and some pain pills that wiped out […] [ ... ]
When a character is introduced to the reader for the first time in a story, there is always a desire to tell all: what the character looks like, the character’s age, marital status, and everything that brought him or her to this moment. Of course, as soon as a writer does this, the forward motion of […] [ ... ]
Recently, on a yahoo groups I belong to, the topic has been Discouragement. I don’t want to start a similar discussion here, but it is a subject that touches many (if not all) of us at some time or another. It’s my belief that we, who are in a creative field (art, acting, writing) or […] [ ... ]
I often wonder if being a writer is a blessing or a curse. It’s 1:00 am Tuesday morning. Two hours ago I took a pill that was supposed to help me sleep. I guess my creative muse didn’t know that because for the last two hours (and even before that) she’s been bombarding me with […] [ ... ]
Early Harlequin romances were written in 3rd person from the heroine’s pov (point of view). It was quite a while before the hero was allowed his pov. Once he was, it wasn’t uncommon for writers to “head hop.” (Go from the heroine’s thoughts to the hero’s and back.) When I started writing romances, I was […] [ ... ]
Last Saturday I attended my local Romance Writers of America Chapter’s meeting. This month’s MMRWA program focused on the first three pages of members’ WIPs (works in progress). I’m not exactly sure how many members submitted their first three pages, but there were at least a dozen read during the program ranging from YA to […] [ ... ]
I want to continue my comparison of athletes to writers. Both athletes and writers enter competitions (the Olympics or other athletic contests for the athlete and writing contests or efforts to have a book published for the writer). Both enter with their best (best conditioning, best routine, or best manuscript). The competitors in the Olympics […] [ ... ]
I’ve been watching the Olympics, and I realized there are a lot of similarities between a successful athlete and a successful writer. Athletes who want to compete at the highest level practice. Most do this daily or almost daily. They don’t let illness stop them or family events. Because they want to improve, they find […] [ ... ]
Recently I’ve been seeing emails where the topic is the following question: Can I Use Real Places? The answers (as they should be) have been “Yes,” “No,” and “It depends.” It depends on what real places (Disney is very protective of its Trademark and anything to do with its products or theme parks.) and what […] [ ... ]
Last week I had the pleasure of reading a delightful romance (The Misadventures of Catie Bloom) written by my niece, Brooke Stanton. For weeks I (and many others) have been receiving teasers announcing the coming release of this book. I remember even voting, sometime in the past, on which cover design I liked best. When […] [ ... ]
Back in May a new writer asked how to keep others from copying her plot. My answer was: “There are only so many plots, so everyone is copying. It’s how each individual presents the plot that makes one story different from another.” The discussion then moved into how many plots are there? There is no […] [ ... ]