A guest post by Autumn Birt Are you a writer? If so, are you meeting your writing goals? Writing is a passion, one usually cobbled together from stolen moments and highs of inspiration. But if you get the writing bug and you get it bad, finding enough time is often a source of frustration. Why […]
This post originally appeared on my old Blogger blog on November 23, 2011. I’ve asked some bloggers to contribute guest posts, where they answer two questions: what’s the best thing you’ve done, as a writer? what is the hardest thing, or the biggest mistake you’ve made? I am contributing posts on the same subject to […]
(Just the first draft) Over the weekend, I finished the sequel to Army of Worn Soles. Looking at the outline a week ago, I realized I had only one chapter left to write to complete the story arc. So that’s what I did: I mapped out and then wrote that last chapter. What a great […]
By Julie C. Gilbert Even as Marcella’s eyes widened in alarm, Matt triumphantly stabbed the button to place the call on speaker. Her mother’s excitable voice filled the car. “’Cella! Why you no call? Your papa and I, we wait days to hear from our baby and no calls!” “Hi, Ma,” Marcella said, trying to […]
Writing fiction is different from writing non-fiction. It’s harder. With non-fiction, you may answer a need: “How to hammer nails straight,” or “How to deceive yourself into believing that this diet will actually work next week.” In fiction, however, it’s completely up to the writer to make the reader need to read the content. And […]
Zoe Saadia is clearly a very good writer. She has succeeded in a difficult task for a writer — I know, because it’s very similar to what I tried in my own writing. In At Road’s End, Zoe Saadia presents a historical story set in a time, place and culture that are, as far as […]
Castles: A Fictional Memoir of a Girl with Scissors by Benjamin X. Wretlind My rating: 5 of 5 stars Often, you can tell on the first page whether a writer knows what he or she is doing. There’s a flow, a grace to the way these writers construct their sentences that makes reading a joy. […]