Do writers have overactive right brains?

Potters, painters and photographers all have tangibles to work with. Writers work in a sphere of the unseen. What an ethereal realm we are engaged in…weaving the fabric of our stories from little more than imagination and inspiration. Sometimes I feel like one of the weavers from ‘the emperor’s new clothes’, spinning my story from invisible thread and inviting my readers to believe in [...]

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‘On location’ in 1905 San Francisco – rare vintage video

Writing a novel set in early 1900 San Francisco? This rare vintage video was shot with a  35mm camera bolted to the front of a trolley car as it traveled down Market Street  in 1905. What makes this even more exceptional is the fact that it was captured before the earthquake/fire of 1906 destroyed the area. Remarkable footage of [...]

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Libraries going ‘bookless’

Does anyone else find this terribly disturbing? I’ve been reading about the trend for libraries to digitize themselves but this is unbelievable!  “The headmaster of a central Massachusetts school that eliminated most of the books in its library says the move has worked well, turning the the library into a magnet for students and faculty. [...]

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Spring kittens

 There’s a barn cat who’s been roaming around our property for several months. She’s black and white with a broken tail permanently bent at a 90 degree angle. We never saw much of her, except to scurry in and out of bushes or grab a bite of food off the porch. Today she showed up in our [...]

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Urban Dictionary — resource for writers who lead a sheltered life

From my Writer’s Toolbox: Here’s a good resource to keep you from ‘stepping in it’ literally when it comes to slang and the new urban language. For instance, I want to use the word ‘wuss’ in a children’s book and I need to know if it has any off color overtones that would be inappropriate for [...]

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So you want to be a writer…

Here’s what I’ve learned about writing in the last three years. When everyone else is: watching TV, I am probably writing. sleeping, I am usually writing and editing. on FaceBook, I’m…ooops…gotta get back to writing. blogging, I am writing, wishing I had more time to blog. shopping, I am revising a chapter. texting and tweeting, I am talking to my MC. eating, [...]

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Google ‘street view’–the next best thing to being there

How do you imagine the settings in your book? This is one of my weak spots, especially since one of my settings is in a place I’ve only visited in my imagination. Much as I would prefer to travel and do ‘on location’ research, I’m not at liberty to pack up and fly to London at the moment. I thought a [...]

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Point of view: a reader and writer’s perspective

Writing has made me a more critical reader. My latest library book lost me as a reader because of technical issues. Besides some rather drab characters and a meandering plot, the POV shifted so often I was starting to feel the main action of the story was my ability to leap about between character’s heads. I won’t tell you what [...]

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Admitting my love affair (with writing)

When do you let the cat out of the bag? In the beginning I didn’t tell anyone I was writing a book.  I thought it sounded rather pompous, and of course, I didn’t know if I had the guts to sustain it, but I kept hacking away, in the dead of night for going on 3 years. Whatever [...]

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When cats go searching for their identity…archetypes and the hero’s journey

I’ve been missing in action, but hardly inactive. When I first started writing, my research lead me to use the model of archetypes to develop my characters. Any intrepid Googler can find enough online info to understand this mythic structure. My delicious bookmarks attest to that and considering I knew nothing when I started out, [...]

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