Archive | July, 2014

Featured Fiction Friday: All My Belongings, by Cynthia Ruchti!

We love authors here at MBT, and love to celebrate great reads (especially the kind that you could pick up and read over the weekend!!

I love Cynthia’s stories – and did you know her books have been recognized by RT Reviewers’ Choice Award, Retailers’ Choice Award, Gayle Wilson Award of Excellence, and Carol Award nominations, among other honors, including a Family Fiction Readers’ Choice Award. Most of all, Cynthia is a genuinely caring, awesome person who I LOVE hanging out with!!

I asked her to come by and share with you a bit about her newest story!

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Two Tips to Get Past “I Can’t Write”

I’m on deadline.

What that means is, writing is mandatory for me. I have a title for my manuscript. A word count. Most importantly, I have a due date. And yes, barring some unforseen catastrophe such as an alien invasion or Godzilla rampaging through Colorado Springs, I will meet my deadline. (I am not thinking about any real disasters that can happen to writers everywhere.)
But let me honest with you: there are days I don’t feel like writing.

I write anyway.

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Saggy Scene Series: The ONE Easy Trick to creating Scene Tension

Build in a Fear of Failure!

I am a closet SciFi junkie, and my current love affair is Falling Skies. I’ve been with them from the beginning and to be honest, I love the show not for the Sci-Fi, but for the characters. In short, I love the hero, and his three sons, and want them to survive.

I care about these Sympathetic Characters.

Which is why I found myself at the edge of my seat during last week’s episode. The hero, Tom Mason (played by Noah Wylie) and his oldest son, Ben, are trapped in a prison camp and need to escape. They’ve devised a wild plan to break through the electrical walls that holds everyone prisoner.

I realized the episode was fantastic when I found myself on my feet at the end of it.

Here’s the play of events – the hero has to distract the bad guys (skitters, or very large alien bugs) and get them to a building they’ve rigged to blow. In the meantime, Ben has to gather up all the prisoners and get them into the tunnels near their escape route. Finally, a third group, incidentally, a motley crew of soldiers who hate each other, has to climb over the wall with this homemade electric-repelling suit to get to the power supply and take down the electric wall.

If you are a fan and haven’t seen the episode, stop reading here.

The plan begins perfectly – Tom kills a guard, which brings out a horde of bugs, who chase him (he’s on a motorcycle) through the city, away from the escapees.

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Rachel Hauck

Being At The Top Of Your Game

As I write to you from my turret tower, my friend Carrie sitting on the floor with my dog Lola, I gaze out my window at my farm…

Wait, there’s no farm. Pardon me, I’m a bit punchy. I lapsed into Christmas in Connecticut.

I finishing a rewrite, How To Catch A Prince. It’s been a little over a month now. I know some people, who shall be nameless, Susan May Warren, write whole books from scratch in that amount of time, but I am not such a writer.

I’m getting fast but I’m like to mull. Chew. Think. I’m the kind of person who comes up with a fabulous retort or brilliant response to a conversation three days later.

But then no one cares to hear my amazing insight.

I process. Or iProcess. Whichever. I am a Macophile.

Anyway.

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