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MY STATEMENT ON MY SOCIAL SECURITY STATEMENT
My friend and fellow author, Linda Apple, posted this blog. I love her point so much that I had to share!
What is beauty?
I love this perspective on true beauty, by my friend and fellow author, Jessica Nelson. She nails it!
A blogger friend of mine – you may have heard of her, the amazing August McLaughlin – is hosting a blog fest titled “The Beauty of a Woman” this week. I accepted a Facebook invite to the event thinking, sure, I’ll read and comment on blogs, sounds like fun.
When the fest kicked off today, I began pondering the question: what makes a woman truly beautiful? I realize there is at least a hundred different answers to that, so I dug a little, asked myself the simplified version – what is beautiful to me? As cynical and sarcastic as I am, I do find beauty in every day things. I even see it in some of the most terrible places thanks to my skewed vision.
I touched on my depression in my last blog post. Let me take you a little deeper here.
I had absolutely no reason to be…
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Move Along… Crappy Support Not Taken Here
My friend and fellow author, Amy Weaver, has a great point to share.
A while back, I was talking to someone about something I was struggling with in my writing. This person is not a writer, but I thought that was okay. I figured they would at least listen, and maybe (hopefully), give me an opinion or an encouraging word. I was wrong. Here was the response:
“Well, you have your writer friends for that.”
This perplexes me to no end. Do writers have to only go to writers for help and support?
I was at a writer’s conference this past weekend and it felt so good to be surrounded by people who understand the passion, the struggles, and the love of the written word. The camaraderie was palpable and the support never-ending. Judgment? That word doesn’t exist among this group and I have to think that would be the case for most writer conferences and groups.
Here’s the thing– we (writers) have to…
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Confessions of a Passion Addict
Friend and fellow author, Ruth Weeks, posted this fabulous blog about the passion of writing.
This weekend I attended the quarterly meeting of the Ozark Writers League in Branson, Missouri. The theme of the conference was Women in Writing. The keynote speakers were August McLaughlin and Paris Afton Bonds, both very successful and strong women. However, there was a second theme swirling around this meeting as well.
Passion.
I’m not talking about physical passion between two people but rather passion of the heart; the passion for life, work, family, career, and creativity.
This emotion is the gravy on the potatoes, salt on the carrots, and the icing on the cake. It’s a writer’s secret weapon. Passion keeps us at the computer to wee hours in the morning, back and neck screaming at us to stop. Eyes heavy with sleep. It burns white-hot and is never yielding. Passion to write the story negates the rejection letters. Keeps us hoping and believing in our craft. We’d write…
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A Lovely Name
Wonderful blog by my friend and fellow author, Lori Ericson.
Choosing names for fictional characters and places can be a challenge. A writer has to be careful to make sure names of various characters aren’t too similar, fit the characters, and are something the reader can remember.
Book cover by Casey Cowan, Oghma Creative Media
While writing A Lovely County, I started out with the real names of the locations I envisioned in Northwest Arkansas. But later in the process I decided it was best to come up with fictional names so as not to disparage actual places. I decided on the name Lovely County because of its historical significance. The title has taken hold in my writer’s mind. I plan to name the next book in the series A Lovely Murder, which is likely to be followed by A Lovely Grave.
Although fictional, the name is based on the historical Lovely County, which was named for…
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Getting It Right
A fine and very wise blog post from my friend and fellow author, Velda Brotherton.
You wouldn’t call this lily a rose
Those of us who write nonfiction know we have to “get it right.” But often fiction authors aren’t as careful. When I’m reading fiction and see something way off base I often stop reading. Why didn’t this writer take the time to find out how something really works? My husband is an avid reader, a gun lover and an auto and airplane mechanic. Nothing annoys him more than to run across a character in a fiction story who does something absolutely wrong when it comes to guns, cars or airplanes. There are experts like him in every field and chances are, some of them will read our books and experience the same reaction.
We may be writing fiction, but we need to get the real stuff right. Gone are the days when we could make up everything and get away with it.
We…
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