Category: How To and Tips
How Summers Away Helped Me Find My Creativity
During the summer of the pandemic, many of us city-dwellers were trying to flee the cramped towers of downtown for the sprawling landscapes of the countryside, and I was no exception. Stepping into my partner’s family’s rustic cottage on the North Bruce Peninsula felt like an exhale of relief. That summer was a turning point […]
Why Women Writers Should “Work It”
It stands to reason that great fiction would take place in the great arenas of the human experience: the places where we test our talents, boundaries, and mettle. This could be the battlefield, the sports field, outer space, the kitchen table, or the classroom, among zillions of other places. But puzzlingly, in contemporary fiction, one […]
Irma Venter, author of Red Tide, on Women Characters in Crime Novels
Irma Venter, author of Red Tide, on Women Characters in Crime Novels What does a strong female character in a crime novel look like? This question has intrigued me since I was a teenager scouring the library for my next read. Often the female characters were one of two things – the (often passing) love […]
Keeping Promises to Ourselves and Getting to the Finish Line—- and Beyond
By Lynne Shaner I started writing what would become my debut novel more than ten years ago. The first draft was messy and awful and all over the place, in the way firsts drafts are (mine, anyway). I printed it out it and boxed it up and lugged it halfway across the country. I tucked […]
Does Grief Transform What you Write?
By Sweta Vikram We were at a dinner gathering the other night when a few people asked, “When are you writing your next novel?” I didn’t have an answer. These people knew that I started work on a new novel in summer of 2020. They had shown interest in the storyline. They wanted to know […]
A Writer’s Life is a Roller Coaster. How Best to Avoid Whiplash
By Lorraine Devon Wilke When I was in grade school, my class participated in a special pullout session to watch an interesting documentary about noted anthropologist Louis Leakey. I was mesmerized throughout, so when we were assigned to write an essay immediately afterwards, I jumped in, flush with enthusiasm. Imagine, then, the blow of getting […]
From Proscenium to Paper: One writer’s journey by Jayne Chard
by Jayne Chard I started writing at about eight; I wrote all the junior school plays. When I was fourteen, I wrote my first “novel.” One of my friend’s Dad was a writer, and I always remember him saying, “If you want to be a writer, you have to write every day,” I guess I’ve […]
Life as a WIP
By Nancie Abuhaidar WIP: abbreviation for work in progress or process: a piece of work or a product that has been begun but is not finished or ready –Cambridge Dictionary In the work in progress that is my life, it feels like I’m living the boggy middle of a first draft, a fact echoed literally in my current project. Since I self-published my debut, I’ve been working on the next […]
CHASING SHADOWS: How a Real-Life Mystery Inspired a Co-Written Novel
By A.C. Adams My wife and creative partner, Christina Adams, and I met in San Diego in our early twenties. She had just returned from a tour in India and Europe as the lead singer of Vrindavan, a world music ensemble. I was the composer and book writer for an original rock opera, An Eye […]
Six Things I Learned Watching Outlander
By Valerie Taylor, author of the Venus Bixby Mystery Series Raise your hand. Have you ever said, “The book was better than the movie”? When it comes to Outlander (book by Diana Gabaldon), I’m in no position to compare one format to the other. I am not one of the more than 50 million people […]
Recent Comments