Pretending to Blog
Evaluating the Tools of the Trade
As the publishing industry has expanded through innovative platforms and an explosion of indie authors, so too has the technology to support them. Whether you’re drafting a manuscript, self-publishing your work, designing a marketing plan, leveraging social media for...
The Empty Spaces Between the Other Times
I’ve been thinking a lot about time ever since I received the call at 5:55 PM on a Wednesday. How much time it took me to put on my jacket. To sprint from my office, down the hall, and out to my car. To drive across the bridge to Jamestown to be with my stepmother and...
Inspired or Not
Quote of the Day: "If you’re only going to write when you’re inspired, you may be a fairly decent poet, but you will never be a novelist — because you’re going to have to make your word count today, and those words aren’t going to wait for you, whether you’re inspired...
Writing to a Prompt: AR-15, It’s All In the Branding
This week, a member of my Sunday writing posse set us a challenge for the weekly assignment: Write something using the prompt AR-15. Seriously? I was a bit stumped. Do I try to work a semi-automatic rifle into my murder mystery? Do I write something about the concept...
A Writer Who Respected Her Audience and Her Characters
RIP Beverly Cleary. I adored her books as a child and now, as a parent, I've loved them all over again as I read them to my daughter and then watched her become a huge fan of reading as a result. I think she can recite Ramona the Pest word for word by now. I also...
Changing States
I learned about voting as a kid in Rhode Island. Every few years, they would wheel into our schools a massive booth with switches, a giant lever, and a grey curtain that would swish clink shut on metal bearings. An adult would stand up in front of us and explain the...