As some of you might recall, my birthday was a couple of weeks ago. One of the amazing gifts I received is something called, “The Writer’s Block,” which is a cube-shaped book containing over 700 ideas to help stoke the imagination. From time to time, I’m going to take one of the ideas from that book and showcase it here. I’ve already picked the first one, and I’m looking forward to sharing it. For now,…
Always Ametra
Most of us toiling away at work every day live for moments of downtime – when we’re away from work and can do as we please. My friends and I have dreamed, at one time or another, about what it could be like to not have to work at all. What would it be like to have a full day open to do as much or as little as you’d like? I used to think…
A writer’s work is never truly done, in my opinion. I think that a good practice is to always be working on something – whether it’s a full writing project, outlines for a potential project, or a blog. Before the end of the year, my first novel will be fully immersed in the beta-reading stage. That means it’ll be out of my hands until the jury, er, beta readers read it through and provide input. …
I am so hard on my characters. I was once actually begged…or maybe demanded…to stop inflicting strife upon a particular creation of mine; a lovely young lady who had been through Hell with the love of her life already. I saw them through that (in spectacular fashion, I must say) and was determined to take them through another ordeal almost immediately when I was chastised for it. Was it because I based the character on…
I had to chime in because I was asked whether or not my love of music means that I can sing. The short answer is no. The longer answer is that if you want to give babies a hearing test, you can play my singing voice for them and watch them cry. Or, if you want your feelings hurt I can sing for you. Have any enemies? Let me croon to them. My singing makes…
That was the question. The tagline for this blog is, “Many Incarnations – Only One Original,” because I have written (unpublished works) under three pseudonyms. After recently making the decision to push through and advance my career as a writer, I was faced with the choice of whether relaunch my presence and intentions under my real name, or go back to the comforting anonymity of a moniker of my creation. I took a poll among…
I started reading before I was three years old. I don’t recall the steps involved in learning how to read; when the alphabet started to become familiar to me, or when combinations of letters became recognizable as words. All I know is that, suddenly, I could read. It was amazing. I could often be found sitting on one of the sofa cushions that I’d yanked to the floor, with a book in my hand and…
It can be challenging to figure out when might be the best time to launch a blog. Well, my reasoning is very simple. Today is my birthday. This is my gift to myself – the gift of pressing forward and indulging in something I’ve loved since I was a child. …that, and it also makes it easy to remember the anniversary of the blog…
Some find it interesting to learn that I have a soundtrack for everything I’ve ever written. Music lures my creative mind to depths that allow me to come up with storylines and bits of dialogue that, once the music is off and I’m reading the results, still surprise me to this day. Music also helps me to get through scenes that I find emotionally difficult. I find it easier to write the scene away with…
Just about every writer, established or otherwise, has advice on how to get your name out there and what you should do to overcome any fear you might have of becoming a published author. I’ve read any number of articles, novels, and columns detailing that very thing. I’ve made numerous attempts to follow the very steps described…and it just didn’t work for me. The fact is that overcoming fears, as with many challenges in life,…