When Life Hands You Lemons… (#NaNoWriMo2017)
Our Story So Far… If you’re just arriving, you may want to start with the first chapter. Here is a table of contents: Chapter Six Beau was waiting for me in the school’s lobby. High school teachers don’t have offices, and the lobby at nine o’clock in the morning was more private than the teachers’ […]
It’s Not Gossip If It’s True, Right? (#NaNoWriMo2017)
Our Story So Far… If you’re just arriving, you may want to start with the first chapter. Here is a table of contents: Chapter Five The murmuring from the teachers’ lounge was little better than the breathless whispering in the halls. Principal Fricke strode into the room with his usual brusque efficiency, clapped his hands […]
nanonovel, nanonovel17, nanowrimo, nanowrimo17, nanowrimo2017
Rumor Mill (#NaNoWriMo2017)
Our Story So Far… If you’re just arriving, you may want to start with the first chapter. Here is a table of contents: Chapter Four The sun streaming through the curtains made my head throb. “Never drink wine on a Tuesday night,” I muttered, rolling out of bed and blindly feeling my way to the […]
featured, nanonovel17, nanowrimo, nanowrimo17, nanowrimo2017
Bats in the Belfry (#NaNoWriMo2017)
Our Story So Far… If you’re just arriving, you may want to start with the first chapter. Here is a table of contents: Chapter Three Stewart opened a bottle of Prosecco, filled both our glasses to the rim with golden bubbles, then lifted his in a gesture of salutation. “To best friends,” he said. “Now […]
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Ridiculously Easy (#NaNoWriMo2017)
Our Story So Far… If you’re just arriving, you may want to start with the first chapter. Here is a table of contents: Chapter Two I drove up the winding road to my little rustic bungalow in Juniper Woods. The windows were aglow with a warm, amber light. A shadow crossed behind the sheer curtain. […]
featured, nanonovel, nanonovel17, nanowrimo, nanowrimo17, nanowrimo2017
The Road to Hell (#NaNoWriMo2017)
Chapter One Joe Krebs and I stared at one another like two small dogs issuing a half-hearted challenge over an old ham bone buried too long in the mud. Neither of us could win, but it was a way to pass the time. I caught Scotty DeLuca cutting his eyes over at the clock, as […]
featured, nanonovel17, nanowrimo, nanowrimo17, nanowrimo2017, road to hell
Countdown to NaNoWriMo!
Some of you have already started writing, but for those of us in the United States – where NaNoWriMo got its “Na” – we’re still a good 45 minutes to launch. Getting excited? For me, it’s tradition to stay up till midnight an write, at the very least, “In the beginning…” More can wait until […]
Reasons NOT to Start Bullet Journaling
Between the blog and Google Calendar and my stash of $0.99 purple-covered composition books from Wal-Mart, I was doing just fine keeping up with the chronicles of daily life, various appointments, and the to-do list. I didn’t need a Bullet Journal. I didn’t want a Bullet Journal. I’d resisted the siren call to even return […]
bujo, bullet journal, bulletjournal, featured, humor, writebravely
Serial Blogger
Once you’ve considered the pros and cons of blogging your NaNoWriMo novel – or, anything, really – and have decided to go for it, how do you tie all the chapters or related posts together on the blog? Building a table of contents is a bit tedious, and requires extensive cross-linking and updates to be really reader-friendly.
Should I Blog the Novel-in-Progress? #NaNoWriMo #WriteBravely
There are good reasons to blog the novel during #NaNoWriMo, and there are excellent reasons not to. It’s entirely up to you, but you need to consider a few things before you commit to a decision: Copyright, Commitment, and Willingness to Fail.
Here, There Be Dragons – Plot Dragons!
My fellow Write Triber, Vinodini Iyer wrote, in a comment on my Plot Bunnies, Ninjas, and Tales of Derring-Do, “My plot bunnies sometimes start dragging a bit and I need to turn them into plot dragons to make worth a read.” Naturally, my plot dragons wanted to meet her plot dragons! Forever Friends My first plot dragon […]
Plot Bunnies, Ninjas, and Tales of Derring-Do
Have I convinced you to throw yourself into the fray? To sharpen the nib on your fountain pen, dip it into the purple ink, and write perspicacious prose in that delightfully madcap literary adventure known as NaNoWriMo? I hope so! Now, if you’re already addicted to writing, you know the drill. But if you’re still […]
action, chekhov's gun, featured, fiction, nanowrimo, plot bunny, plot ninja
NaNoWriMo Math
I remember thinking I’d never be able to break the 6,000 word barrier, let alone write 50,000 words during my first NaNoWriMo. I had something to prove, that first year – to myself. “Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something—anything—down on paper. What I’ve learned […]
October, or “NaNoWriMo Prep Month”
Some of us don’t like to color inside the lines, and November isn’t the time to start. At its core, National Novel Writing Month, or “NaNoWriMo,” is about writing fast enough to drown out the sound of the inner critic in the frantic clacking of fingernails on a keyboard. 50,000 words in 30 days, or […]
Struggling to Find the Writer’s Voice
Struggling to “find your voice“ as a writer? How can it be that you’ve lost it? It’s like looking for the car keys clutched in your hand. What IS Voice? It’s helpful to define what “voice” is and what it isn’t. Jon Jorgenson wrote, “The artistic voice is a longing to create what does not yet exist, […]
Technologically Challenged and Chuffed!
Technologically Challenged Ever have one of those weeks when everything with electronic, electrical, or mechanical parts would do well to grow legs and run from you? We never even lost power during Hurricane Harvey, but in the few weeks since, the DSL modem fried itself (I didn’t even look at it funny, I swear!) and […]
chuffed, featured, hard drive replacement, humor, technology
I Can See Clearly Now
Eye health is something many of us simply take for granted. Sure, we may need glasses to see, but most of us don’t have serious issues with the health of our eyes. If that changes suddenly, it can be terrifying. Just over two years ago, I woke up with a sharp pain, in the middle […]
dry eye, eye, eye care, eye health, featured, rce, recurrent corneal erosions
Like a Reservoir
I’ve said it before: I don’t believe in writer’s block. The mind is a reservoir. Sometimes, it runs too dry and low on fresh ideas, too sluggish and stagnant to be worth lifting the heft of a pen and dipping it into the inkwell. At other times, it is overflowing – a jumble of sparkling […]
featured, language, reservoir, silence, writer's block, writers, writing
Fresh Start, Fresh Perspective
It began with a change of venue, from HostGator to PeoplesHost. After nearly a decade, it was time for a fresh start. Rather than blow away the old blog, I decided to start with a new one. This gave me the opportunity to experiment with a fresh look, fresh content, fresh thoughts, and a fresh […]
