Burn Notice. Love, love, love the characters. I’d watch Bruce Campbell clean out his gutters. And the story arcs like mad. Everything changes. I hate when writers are afraid to make changes because what they have works. In this moment.

But it can’t work forever. The nature of story is to change. Otherwise, it’s just a snapshot in time.

I can’t turn off the writer.Read More →

This show has flaws: writing that serves the needs of the plot rather than the organic growth of the characters, for one. Reversals in feelings and character consistency are another, but those happen more in characters that are, quite frankly, rather flaky. Characters whose moral compass sometimes spins wildly with disastrous results. And all that makes it soapy fun, which–as I’ve established, I’m totally fine with.

But, at the end of the four or five episodes day, I care about the characters.Read More →

I found my critique partner through a website (Ladies Who Critique) about eight months ago. We exchanged a chapter to see if we would be a fit. We decided to chat on Google a week later and about five minutes in she said, “Can I just call you? I hate chatting.” Feeling slightly awkward about my West Virginia accent, I reluctantly agreed. (She doesn’t know I was reluctant. I’m shy. Shh, that’s a secret). That night, we went over our crits, answered questions, brainstormed. Then we spent three hours talking about writing, and story, and good books. And life. It was like we were meantRead More →

If you’re under 18 or easily offended, you absolutely should not check out this site; otherwise, go there and see for yourself.

I go there to get inspiration when I need to write sexy scenes. Every image, to me, tells a story. It evokes a feeling. Every quote speaks truthfully. And, I love it.Read More →

So, I’ve had my cards a week now.  First impressions: the cards I chose (the Vanessa Tarot) are small.  I was expecting big and… important.  But they’re small, like regular playing cards.  But once I had them out, handling them, shuffling them–I didn’t mind the size so much. Using the tarot was both harder and easier than I expected.  At once, cards that called to me, that spoke to who my characters were and what I knew of them, made their way into the spread.  I’ll just give you some samples, since I wrote all of my cards (and impressions) down. Character: The three ofRead More →

So, I needed some creative inspiration. I keep coming back to these characters. Their story stalled on me. It lacked direction, I think. But the characters. I love these characters. Then, a series of blog posts came across my computer, on Tarot cards and writing from Raelyn Barclay (@raelynbarclay on Twitter). I remembered a Material Girl post I did, years ago, about using Tarot cards to help write. I’d even picked out the deck I wanted (which is good, I’d never have remembered after this long). I couldn’t get the idea out of my head. I checked out the cards again and they’re just beautiful.Read More →

I grew up, and still live, in a small town.  Not small town like less than 5000.  Small town like… 265 people live in my town.  Not that it’s much of a town.  I have to drive 5-10 miles to the nearest 7-11.  Another 40 to Wal-Mart or McDonald’s. It’s 55 miles to the nearest book store–a chain.  An indie bookstore? That would be 91 miles away.  Sure, we have a library.  Only barbarians don’t have libraries.  But… if I had to guess, I’d say we might have 500-1000 books.  Total. So, I think you feel me now.  Growing up and as an adult, IRead More →

I learned a few years ago, when I lost an entire weekend to the time-suck that was Seasons 1 and 2 of Grey’s Anatomy, if you watch a television series in order, for at least a season, you can actually learn a lot.  A season of television (good television, anyway) has story structure, character arc, and escalating conflict. Think about it.  You get 22-25 or so episodes in a season of (most) TV shows.  A season is structured to introduce the season’s conflict, build the tension, tie up the plot in a nice bow, and introduce next season’s story question.  An episode does the sameRead More →

I read a post a few days ago.  It’s not the one linked below, because I had Kindle Klipped it to myself and read it there.  In fact, I can’t track it down at all, because a Google of “brainstorming 100” comes up with lots of posts from different sites.  It didn’t even hit me that much when I read it, except to say, “Hmm.  That idea doesn’t suck.” But then I started reading a novel and, while trying to go to sleep, began looking for the GMC in that book.  I was impressed to realize that while the hero’s GMC is obvious from the beginning, theRead More →

In my experience, which ordinarily involves a great deal of slapping myself on the forehead and muttering, “Why’d I do that?”, a writer who is serious about writing has to write everyday.  Did you see how  many times I use the word write or a variation thereof?  Yeah.  That’s because this is some serious writing info. So, every day. There’s a couple of reasons for this.  In the big picture, if you’re not doing it every day, if you’re, say, only writing when the inspiration hits you, it will take you approximately 874 days to finish a novel.  Know how long that is? For-freaking-ever.  AndRead More →