There is a new kid on Amazon’s block called Kindle Vella. I joined in early in the experimental stage and, so far, I can’t say that it has been the most rewarding experience, but I can’t say that it has been a total flop either. We’re still getting to know […]
Chorus
A poem a day might well keep despair away. I’ve been reading 150 Most Famous Poems published by Poetry House with works by Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, William Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, and many more. What I find so extraordinary is that while reading, I enter a sort of dreamland, […]
Learning the Craft: Pace
What is Pace? Wikipedia defines pace or pacing as the speed at which a story is told — not necessarily the speed at which the story takes place. How does your story unfold? What is it’s rhythm and flow? Shouldn’t there be a rise and fall of plot points […]
What Really Matters?
As I maneuver between the goalposts of my day, I brush up against all sorts of realities. Some deceivingly mundane, some clearly molehills, others require deep prayer to survive their clutching, smothering embrace. As a sat in the library on a Saturday morning where I had offered a writers’ support […]
Learning the Craft: Style II
Should I say things in a positive way? Suppose you want the reader to know how dark a room is. You set your scene. A teenager walks into a room and you write, “There was no light in the room.” The first thing the reader will see is the light […]
Excerpt from OldEarth Melchior Encounter
Everyone Has Questions Abbas didn’t like to do it, but there was no way he could allow her to continue her transmission. Mauve fell to a floor in a heap in the dim corner of the main hall. Omega ran ahead and nudged her still form with his foot. “Is she […]
OldEarth Encounter Themes
Recently, I celebrated another year marked on the calendar of my life. I am also considering how best to focus my energy and enlighten my soul, so I look back on my previous accomplishments and peer ahead into exciting new projects. In our vastly changing world, we still follow an […]
See a Tree
Trees, in their giantess of spirit, talk to me on a daily basis. Thank God, or I don’t know who I’d go to for advice. It’s the end of a long day—a Monday to be exact—and as hectic, overflowing Mondays have the uncanny habit of following slow, afternoon-nap Sundays, I […]
Learning the Craft: Metaphors and Similes
What is a Simile? In our last blog, we got rid of most of our adverbs. So how do we add descriptive, figurative language to our work? Good writers learn the benefits of using metaphors and similes. What is the difference? A simile is a type of metaphor, but […]
Learning the Craft: Adverbs!
Can we make our writing tighter? Last week we dealt with adjectives. Taking a few pages or a chapter, we removed all the adjectives and adverbs and made a two-column list. The first column contained the adjectives, and the second column had the adverbs we removed from the text. Afterwards, […]