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Archive | May, 2014

10 Quotes to Inspire Writers

By on May 15, 2014 in 4. Writer’s Life, Inspiration and Life Coaching, Encourage Me!, Nurturing Creativity, Writer's life

I don’t know about you, but there are days when writing takes more from me than it gives me. Days when “living the dream” makes me want to pull the covers up over my head and just stay in bed.

Usually I deal with the “why am I doing this?” days a few different ways:

Skyping with my mentor
IMing with another writer who feels exactly I do –where we grouse and grumble and threaten to quit and go try out for Broadway
Meeting a friend for breakfast that lasts all the way into the lunch hour
Walking outside in the fresh Colorado sunshine and not talking about writing
Shopping … because, you know, shopping always helps!
All of these techniques encourage me and motivate me, but when I’m discouraged as a writer, sometimes I need inspiration. And being a bit of a quote freak, I’ve found there’s nothing like a good quote to inspire me! So today I want to share 10 writer quote-spirations with you:

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Social Media Minute—7 Tips to Get More Comments on Your Blog

By on May 13, 2014 in Edie Melson, Learn the art of Social Networking, Social Media Primer

Even today—with as many blogs on the Internet as there are—blogging is still a valuable part of building and maintaining an online community. But it’s rare for a blog to take hold and grow, if it’s not a place where comments proliferate. Almost no one likes to be lectured, and that’s what a blog can feel with it the conversation is only one-sided.

I’ll go one step further and add this comparison. Your blog is your Internet home. And because it’s your home, you are responsible for being a good host and making people feel welcome.

Facilitating conversation is just one of the duties of a good host, but it’s the one I want to concentrate on today as I share tips to get more comments on your blog.

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Extreme Book Makeover: 7 Key Ingredients to Creating Powerful Scene Tension

By on May 12, 2014 in 6. Search by Series:, b. Building a Scene, Editing Basics, Extreme Book Makeover, How do I write Tension?, Susan May Warren, writing tension

I watched the season finale of Once Upon a Time last night (*warning! Spoilers!*) and it was one of the best episodes in the series. Why? The tension! The plot was simple – the heroine, who’d finally found her happy ending with her family, accidentally fell back into time, and thwarted the epic, historical meeting of her parents. She pulled a “Back to the Future” and erased her future.

What does she want? To return home and live happily with her family. Her goal – make sure her parents met, somehow. Why? Because after a horrible childhood, she’s finally found a home. What’s at stake? Her life – and her son’s life.

And…standing in her way is the Evil Queen (as well as the lack of magic needed to open the time portal.)

Great set up for the episode – and even better, it makes for exactly the right ingredients to talk about how to create powerful tension in a story – and especially how to keep your Act 2 tension from saggy by creating tension in every scene.

Let’s start a definition of tension. Obstacles and Activity are not Tension. Tension is derived from a sympathetic character, who wants something, for a good reason, and who has something to lose, who then creates a specific, identifiable goal, only to run up against compelling, powerful obstacles, which then creates the realistic fear of failure.

In other words, the MBT Scene Tension Equation.

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Featured Fiction Friday: Beth Vogt

By on May 9, 2014 in Beth Vogt, Featured Book, Featured Fiction, Featured Fiction Fridays

Haley’s three-year marriage to Sam, an army medic, ends tragically when he’s killed in Afghanistan. Her attempts to create a new life for herself are ambushed when she arrives home one evening—and finds her husband waiting for her. Did the military make an unimaginable mistake when they told her Sam was killed?

Too late to make things right with his estranged twin brother, Stephen discovers Sam never told Haley about him. As Haley and Stephen navigate their fragile relation­ship, they are inexorably drawn to each other. How can they honor the memory of a man whose death brought them together—and whose ghost could drive them apart?

Somebody Like You is a beautifully rendered, affecting novel, reminding us that while we can’t change the past, we have the choice to change the future and start anew.

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