The Day Rolled out a little late at quarter to 3. Wow. I hope all of you who are reading this are having a lot better month with your writing than I am so far. With the month mostly gone, it isn’t likely to improve much either. No walk today. Not a lot else either, except I switched my internet browser from Firefox over to Opera. I’m more than happy with it. For one thing, whenever … Read more
The Day Rolled out a little early this morning at about 1:30. After waking up with coffee and email, I thought about yesterday’s post. I was a little harsh maybe. For years I’ve seen writers, even retired, very successful business people, allow various companies to take advantage of them. I despise those companies, and I don’t mind being vocal about it. But the thing is, many writers bring these things on themselves. They’re intelligent people, by … Read more
Hi Folks, In the previous two posts I mentioned using action verbs in brief descriptive narratives. The same goes for longer narratives, of course. There are three kinds of verbs: state-of-being verbs, linking verbs, and action verbs. State-of-being verbs do not show action. As their name implies, they are used to indicate a state of being. The state-of-being verbs are am, is, are, was, were, be, being and been. These are often accompanied by have, has, and … Read more
The Day Rolled out about 3. Checked email and did some website maintenance and updates. Turned a quick 3 mile walk. Went out to the shed and loaded a bunch of my youngest son’s stuff into the pickup for the trip north. Really looking forward to the road trip. Sam Turner from SSA and RWA sent me a very interesting survey comparing readers’ choices in 2015 vs. 2013. There’s a lot of good information there if … Read more
The Day Rolled out about 2:30 after a rough night babysitting an ulcer. Definitely no walk today. Books 3 and 7 of the Wes Crowley saga came in from CreateSpace today. I order three or four copies of each major title I put out just to have a few on hand. Here are the covers of those two: I got some pretty good writing done today, but not fully up to speed. Took a lot more … Read more
Hey Folks, Because dialogue comes directly from the character’s mouth to the reader’s ear, no other part of your story is more intimate with the reader. No other part of the story will do more to engage the reader directly. Dialogue dialogue consists of three elements: two parts narrative and one part nuance. The narrative parts are tag lines and brief descriptive narrative. Nuance is composed of the subtleties of implication. What your character says is … Read more
The Day Almost 3 when I rolled out this morning. Checked emails and weather. No rain, so I’ll walk this morning. Had a great walk. Only about 5.5 miles but at a good pace despite shooting a few pics. Got a couple cover pics so it’s all good. The guy on the left is a baby cotton tail and he was naturally curious. Hopped just off the trail, then stopped and looked while I took pictures. … Read more
The Day Rolled out about 2, so back to normal. Checked emails and other things, including Dean’s blog for the past two days. I recommend reading his topic of the night Here and then Here. Great stuff if you want to see why I say you should NOT get an agent, and why you should publish your work and then leave it published. I also read a lot of the comments on Dean’s posts. Interesting stuff, … Read more
The Day Rolled out about 3 (yay, slept in). Checked emails and other things. Started today by writing a nuts and bolts post on dialogue for the Pro Writers series that posts every ten days. Guess I’ll be running through my core seminars again (briefly) in the next several posts over there. Had a good walk today. Planned to hit about 6 miles and wound up with 7.5. I was planning to take most of today … Read more
The Day Rolled out about 2. Checked emails and comments on Facebook (posted some things about the trip). I did walk today, but keep it short at just over 3 miles. Had a trip to Sierra Vista for two new tires and an oil change for the pickup. Ugh. But it was necessary with a long trip coming up. Stopped in at the mall and talked very briefly with the Marine recruiter, a young veteran of … Read more