Chapter 3 — Story Starters and Where to Get Ideas

Note: If you’re interested in Irish food, clothing and other unique items, visit Celtic Clothing. This past Christmas season I ordered two sets of Guiness pint pub glasses. When the order arrived, there was only one set. When I emailed them, they apologized, explained that their supplier had failed, and then refunded the full price of my original order, almost $50. They insisted I keep the first set of pub glasses as a gift and apologized … Read more

Chapter 2 — Determining Your Role in the Story

This will be a difficult concept for many of you to grasp. Why? Simply because of all of the myths that have been drummed into us during our entire lives. The big myth here is that your appropriate role as the writer is Almighty Writer on High. (Hear the angelic chorus?) But if you grasp this concept, it will start you along the path to Freedom as a writer and more fun than you’ve ever had at … Read more

Chapter 1 — What Do You Mean, Character-Driven?

Folks, Before I give you Chapter 1, a shout out to an excellent writer, Sara Therese and her most recent blog post, which I hereby declare Required Reading for anyone who enjoys good, strong, emotional writing or Love. You can find it here. Okay, here’s Chapter 1 — What Do You Mean, Character-Driven? Staple it to the inside of your eyeballs, folks: All good fiction is character-driven. No matter the genre, fiction isn’t about the science … Read more

Writing the Character-Driven Story: Introduction

For these special posts, I’m providing only an excerpt via email. Please click Read More or Read On near the bottom of the email to read the entire post at the website. Remember, you can get this and other of my works by subscription now at a substantial savings. To learn more about that, click the Subscribe to My Work tab on the website. About the Blog Version Writing the Character-Driven Story is going to be … Read more

Stopping Points

Hi Folks, Okay, first, wishing you a Happy New Year. May it be everything you want it to be. As I write this, I recently visited Dean Wesley Smith’s website (link below) and read some of the comments there. The comments are almost always as informative as the posts themselves. In fact, I regularly pass along tidbits from his site over on my Daily Journal. (Subscription info below.) To sign up for my diary of a … Read more

Setting Goals — 2016 Is Almost Here

Hey Folks, If you’re a human being with dreams and aspirations, this is a great time to be thinking about what you want to attain or achieve in 2016. If you’re a writer, that means thinking about goals. At the minimum I recommend setting a daily writing goal, one that automatically resets at the beginning of each time period. If your goal is to write 1000 words per day and you meet or exceed it, great. … Read more

The Journal, Monday, 12/14

Hi Folks, Well, on the second day of my new system of writing during my quiet time, I messed it up. (grin) On the up side, I limited my waking up time to about ten minutes. On the down side, I spent the next two and a half hours on admin stuff, prepping The Scent of Acacias for layout for print. Sigh. I forgot I hadn’t done that yet. I already have folks wanting boxed sets … Read more

The Journal, Sunday, 12/13

Hi Folks, Today is the first day of me going back to writing earlier instead of allowing my quiet time to be taken up with other nonsense. I’m allowing myself a half-hour to an hour and a half administrative time. During that time I’ll check and respond to emails, update my Fiction spreadsheet and tend to other administrative matters. I’ll also take care of the kitten and come here to begin the Journal entry for the … Read more

The Journal, Saturday, 12/12

Hi Folks, This was mostly a non-writing day. I wasn’t really planning it to be a day off, but that’s how it turned out. So about 2:30 p.m., I called it. Suffice it to say I really need to start getting two to three hours of writing done while the world is quiet in the early morning hours. Then no matter what happens the rest of the day, at least I got something done. The Day … Read more

The Journal, Friday, 12/11

Hi Folks, Still under the weather a bit today but definitely on the mend. It feels good knowing by this time tomorrow I ought’a be back to my normal level of unhealthinessicity. (grin) The Day Rolled out a little before 3 this morning. Sometime overnight my subconscious set up an alarm reminding me to get the “boxed set” of the Wes Crowley novels out for that one guy who might want it for Christmas. (grin) So … Read more