Category: How To and Tips
Writing Unforgettable Characters
By Tammy L. Grace As a reader, I am always drawn to characters in books. I remember characters from books I read decades ago, like Scout and Atticus Finch, Anne Shirley, Jean Valjean, and Hercule Poirot. As a young reader, I dreamed of becoming a novelist, crafting characters as unforgettable as those I still admire. […]
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 […]
Writing Multicultural Stories by Patsy C. Robertson
by Patsy C. Robertson When I embarked on my writing journey, I had a clear vision of the types of stories I wanted to write. I wanted modern stories that displayed current and historical connections between Native Americans, African Americans, Africans, and the African diaspora throughout the Caribbean, South America, Central America, and Mexico. For […]
Fictional hope is still hope: The power of uplifting stories
By Ginny Kubitz Moyer Over the twenty-six years that I taught high school English, many students noticed an unfortunate pattern among our assigned texts. “We always have to read such depressing books in our English classes,” they would complain. “Aren’t any of the classics happy?” It was a valid point, because our department curriculum—like that […]
Bring Everyone In With You: A Strategy For Those Days When You Feel Like You’re Not
by Rachel Stone Most days, I’m am author. The odd day, like today, I’m a speaker who tells people how I came to be an author in hopes of inspiring them to make space for their passions. But lately, I’ve felt unjustified in calling myself either. My current manuscript has me totally stuck. My last […]
Writer’s Block and the Refrigerator
What is the spark that ignites your creativity? What sets your imagination on fire, sending you to your laptop or notebook to record those thoughts before they fly away? What keeps you moving forward? This is the best part of writing, letting the words fly across the page as your characters take shape and you […]
A Compass for Stormy Seas by Dessy Levinson
By Dessy Levinson Here are two truths and a lie: Our nervous system floods our minds in ways that become overwhelming. Our brain can parse overwhelm and clear it if we focus more on what is troubling us. There’s a way of navigating overwhelm that—over time—can steer you toward becoming your most caring and creative […]
WRITING AND TRAUMA: Finding Your Voice
By Cynthia Moore I started writing at 6, filling notebooks with scribbled poems and stories, to drown out the sound of my stepfather’s rage. At night, when the gin flowed freely, his yelling filled the house and all I could do was write, write, write. In the morning, I would tenderly offer a crumpled poem […]
Who’s Driving This Novel, Anyway?
By Ellen Meister I’m a pretty intrepid driver. By that I mean I’m unfazed crossing the bridge from suburban Long Island, where I live, to the hurried, harried, horn-hectic streets of Manhattan. But Brooklyn? Dear god, Brooklyn knocks the stuffing out of me. And yet, I chose to set my most recent novel there. A […]
From Headlines to Page: How I Transformed a National News Story into a Suspense Novel
By Regina Buttner Several years ago in my former hometown, the local media was abuzz with the tale of a young man whose parents were compelled to take the drastic step of evicting him from their suburban home for refusing to get a job and contribute to the household. It was a hard-to-believe story that […]
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