Sunday’s issue of the NY Times includes an article by Nicholas Noyes which visits (in a sense) the subject of this post. It’s named How to use a Novel as a Guidepost (1/15/17). He begins by quoting from Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist: “It was nearly eleven o’clock when they reached the turnpike at Islington. […]
Category: Writing
Memoir Shorts – Mustangs
Church was fun, especially the parts that weren’t churchy. I got my first sports uniform when I joined the Westmont Methodist basketball team. We all agreed that our color was red which meant we all had to buy red shorts. The rest of the outfit, well…varied by man. My uniform was an undershirt, and a […]
Turning Play Into Novel
Authors are often asked where the story they’ve written came from. It’s a good question, and the answer can provide interesting insights into the way the story unfolds, and the form that the story takes. In the case of my new novel Missing Girls, the story rises out of a play I wrote that wasn’t […]
Why Not Think of Book Reviewers as Beta Readers?
Who are Beta Readers? At some point in the development of your novel in progress you will benefit from the observations and opinions of writers like you who are willing to read with a critical eye. They are called Beta readers. Perhaps they form a group that is interested in the craft of writing […]
How to Revise Your Published Kindle eBook
I submitted my eBook to Amazon at the beginning of June this year, thinking it was free of any kind of error. Subsequently, I found several typos that needed to be fixed. Last night, I submitted my revised eBook, and this morning it was up on Amazon with all corrections. In between, I spent hours […]
The Writing Process Blog Hop
It’s My Turn I looked all over for a picture that would capture the essence of this post and settled on this one of Stephen King “at work” rapping out another novel. Stephen has sold over 350 million copies of his works. I have a way to go catch up with him, but this isn’t […]
Rejection Letter: “It’s a good play. I just don’t like it.”
Maine Playwrights Festival – And the winner is… One of the truly good aspects of the judging process for the 2014 Maine Playwrights Festival is the inclusion of comments from the readers of the play. This is the first time it has happened, and it is most welcome. Acorn Productions, the sponsor of the Festival […]
What Can a Word Cloud Tell You About a Story?
I was introduced to the subject of word clouds through a blog post by Jeri Walker-Bickett on her web page, and thought I’d try one on my short story called “A Pig For Love”. I used the Tagxedo program (there are many such programs, each with their pros and cons) to create an image in […]
Why Write a Novel About Murder? A Bunk on Death Row
Edgar Smithย was in solitary confinement awaiting his execution in the electric chair,ย sentenced to death for the first degree murder of a 15 year old girl by a jury that deliberated for less than three hours following his two week trial. In his jail cell he studied the law and read extensively. He became acquainted with […]
How I Got My Scar Contest
Every Saturday in the summer, my two older sisters and I would traipse over the tracks that ran through our hometown Westmont, Illinois to Grandma’s house. Grandpa was there too, but he just sat in his easy chair not saying a word. Grandma had the bulletin with the current attractions at the Westmont Theater hanging […]