Whether to publish digitally or traditionally seems to be the question of the day in the writing world. And to that I say… Well, let me back up a little. I am a writer. I’ve written a lot of words. I am, in fact, well past the “10,000 hour” rule. Nearly all of that writing has been done for the simple fact that I love doing it. I find the undertaking to be exciting, even seductive (and we won’t talk about the aggravatingly challenging parts). When I am writing, the rest of the world might not even exist. Food? Oh, […]

I’m excited. My good friend and writing partner, Kristie Kiessling, has published a thoroughly good read over on Smashwords. I hope you all will take the time to go read it, and to comment either on her Smashwords page or on her Facebook. Yodhi’s blood is special.  The doctors say his blood could change the face of modern medicine.  All his parents want to do is take their baby home.  Congratulations, Kristie!

If you are a gardener of any kind, you know that weeds (and bugs) are the enemies of your careful planning, planting, and fertilizing. Our word gardens – our books, stories, articles, etc. – need care, too. Hiding beneath the lush scenery of our imaginations, there are weeds and bugs that have got to go. Just because something is unseen, in no way means it has gone unnoticed. To the untrained, small mistakes can collect in the subconscious. A reader might put a book down and never know exactly why she couldn’t get engaged, or why she felt the text […]

“The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.” (Anonymous) On the surface of things, it might sound like I am still in the same place I was the other day with my post about grabbing a reader’s attention with the first line: Start Here. I began this morning thinking about what today’s post would be about. To encourage my thinking I went outside to work in the garden, and the neighbor’s dog nearly convinced me to write about him – and about the couple that pulled their car up outside my […]

“In the beginning, heaven and earth were created, and in the beginning you should move them to get off to a good start.” (Jack Webb, author) Most of the people I know start reading fiction at the beginning of the book. That’s where you’re supposed to start, right? That means the beginning has to be good. It has to reach out and grab the reader’s attention from the very first sentence, the very first paragraph. But how does an author do that? She catches the reader’s emotions in the first instant. Generally, we’ve all been taught to begin in medias res: […]