Boy, doesn’t that title just make you sit up and take notice. I woke up thinking about this today. Food. Writing. Diet Coke. Writing. Chips. Writing. Diet Coke. Writing. Tea. Writing. Water. Water. Water. To undo the chips and Diet Coke, of course. Writing. After returning from the fantastic Deep Thinkers retreat, I’d resolved to cut back on this, do a little more of that… But a week later, I can feel myself, see myself, slipping into old habits. Some of it is just determination. Any kind of discipline requires inspiration followed by a boat load of determination. But to keep going, we need motivation. Motivation comes from little successes. Big successes. Encouragement. More inspiration. A notch up on the determination. But it also requires resolve in our emotions. To just do it! And […]
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Food Fight! 8 ways to keep healthy while you write
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Quick Skills: Finding you Romance Story Arc
If you are writing a romance, it can sometimes be difficult to know exactly how to build all the pieces so that you have the right amount of tension in your story. How soon do you make them fall in love? When do you start breaking them up? How do they get back together? This problem is solved by understanding the two main story arcs of romance: The Why/Why Not, or the Why Not/Why. (These arc models apply to both a straight up romance, or just a romance thread.) Understanding the kind of story you have helps you understand how to layer in the tension and where to insert the different components of your romance. Let’s a take a look: The first structure is Why/Why Not: These are stories that […]
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Conversations: The basics of writing a romance.
Sally came into the coffee shop with a smile. “My husband gave me the entire weekend to write. I’ve written five chapters since last Monday.” “That’s a good man you have there,” I said. “And a good model of a romantic hero. This week, we’re going to talk about how to craft your romance.” “Oh, I know how to do that. I’ll just make them fall in love.” “That’s of course, the goal, yes. But along the way, we have to doubt that they will, indeed, live Happily Ever After, and we do that by creating obstacles, or what I call, Why Nots – both internal and external — that feel so big that they can’t overcome them.” “Consider this – if you know how much a couple has overcome […]
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March’s Writer’s Challenge and A Vision in a Kiss
Congratulations to Michelle Weidenbenner who won the February writer’s Challenge with her delicious story “A Vision in a Kiss”: Mom and Dad could peek at Trae and me from the kitchen window of our new home, but we didn’t have anything to hide. Yet. We were taking a break from unloading moving boxes—my parents had insisted. I couldn’t believe our permanent home would be a few blocks from Trae’s. He sat across from me at the wooden picnic table the movers had placed in the shade under the maple tree in the backyard. The humid summer air clung to our skin and made Trae’s tan glisten in the fading sunlight. He blew up at his wavy, tousled blond hair that had fallen out of his cap and onto the […]
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