Tag: women writers
How important is smell in your writing?
How important is smell in your writing? — Women Writers (@WomenWriters) August 16, 2014 @WomenWriters I use scent for various visceral things in my writing. Scent and taste bring the reader into the character's immediate world — AK Anderson (@A_K_Anderson) August 16, 2014 @WomenWriters Smell is a key sense we must describe in our writing. […]
Writing to Dissolve the Mess
Writing is my ‘thing’. It’s something I’m passionate about. Even during physical and mental exhaustion, I’m plotting novels or articles, editing my work, studying or reading. But, despite having scribbled down stories since I was young, writing hasn’t always been something I’ve referred to as my ‘thing’. When I was a kid, I’d say it […]
Marketing your Novel: Prepare in Advance!
When you’re constantly receiving rejection letters from publishers or agents, the last thing you’re probably thinking about is publicizing a novel you can’t even seem to sell. Before I continue, let me stop a moment and give this very loud and clear disclosure: nothing, nothing, NOTHING, matters more than writing a killer book. Spend 99 […]
Talking to Myself: The Importance of Keeping a Diary
I’m driving along under a gray March sky in the gray company car to a town I’ve never been to before on a highway that climbs over the Cascades and then rolls south along the coast but nowhere really near it. My iPod is playing songs I fell in love with 20 years ago. Salsa […]
Susan Vreeland: Fiction and Art
Sometimes I’m baffled about what Tracy Chevalier and I set in motion in 1999 with our two Vermeer novels, my Girl in Hyacinth Blue and her Girl with a Pearl Earring. They both hit the New York Times Bestseller List about the same time, and ever since, there has been a flurry of ekphrasic literature, […]
Documentary writing: Different from fiction?
Margot McCuaig writes fiction and makes documentaries. We asked her if she could provide us an insight into the differences between the two. Writing fiction and writing, producing and directing factual documentary films are different disciplines. To some extent at least the creative processes are poles apart. Fiction is freestyle; it is frequently an embodiment […]
How Writing and Gardening Overlaps
“In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.” -Margaret Atwood This spring, when the first grape hyacinths were pushing their way through the snow, I made a decision to abandon something I love for something I love even more. Although I grew up in a family of avid gardeners, […]
How do stories come to you?
We asked on Twitter, you answered! How do stories come to you? Do you visualise them or do you actually hear the words? — Women Writers (@WomenWriters) July 28, 2014 @WomenWriters like movies playing scene by scene, sometimes just a line or two, or a location, a name or a feeling in my gut #amwriting […]
You don’t need support to write: you own your own words
This week @WomenWriters asked on Twitter: How does your family view your writing? Are they supportive? — Women Writers (@WomenWriters) July 20, 2014 My initial response was pretty harsh. @WomenWriters Conversations like this can mislead. We don’t need family support or approval to write. — Racheline Maltese (@racheline_m) July 20, 2014 Who needs support? And […]
The Truth in Fiction
At the age of 40, I decided to pursue a long-held dream of writing and started with a young adult, coming-of-age novel. It gathered only rejections. While plugging away at my next novel, a work of adult commercial fiction, I was tasked with writing a nonfiction piece for a communications class. After passing it in, […]
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