Wild Word Friday! The elders in our little community often refer to a porch as a STOOP, and, when I hear that word, I visualize the daub-and-wattle huts of ancient times where a hard, swept-dirt pad fronts a small low door. You had to STOOP to get into the hut, and thus the first word for…
It’s very tempting to send YOUR Novel out into the world without a last rewrite for word use and phrasing, but please, after all your hard work, don’t succumb to the temptation to let that baby face the query gauntlet without a “sound check.” I recommend that you read this redux out loud. You will…
One of the first words I learned as young piano student was FORTE. FORTE is an Italian word (pronounced fore- tay) and it means loud. I loved seeing that little word FORTE printed on my music. Kick it in! Pound that keyboard! Permission to be loud? WooHoo! I soon began mimicing the adults in my life by using FORTE in…
As you edit YOUR Novel, you may want to schedule a rewrite with your research in mind. This is pretty much a given for authors of historicals or techno-thrillers. Not so much for those who write contemporary fiction. An intensive research rewrite was always a part of my “redux” for my Alaska novels, but a few…
Wild Word Friday! I’d never heard of the word CHOUSE (rhymes with house) until a month ago when I was browsing through a dictionary, and there it was, important enough to be tucked in its own little dictionary niche. Thus I learned that a CHOUSE is a swindler. Used as a verb, to CHOUSE means to trick…
I don’t know about you, but sometimes I get lazy. That’s not always bad. We all need a lazy day (night or evening) to regenerate after hectic times. But when it comes to novels, nothing pops a reader out of YOUR Novel more quickly than a few pages of lazy prose. Ninety-nine percent of the time,…
Wild Word Friday! Don’t you just love a word like CHICANERY? Just saying it out loud engenders all kinds of mischievious images. Most of the CHICANERY in mylife happened when I was a kid. My younger brother Bob was my sidekick. Actually, I was probably his sidekick. He was a lot better at CHICANERY than I was, although…
YOUR Novel! My dad has always been one of my alpha readers. He’s a speed reader. For him it’s all about story. My third draft is all about plot, and as I rewrite, I try to see what I’ve written “through my dad’s eyes.” On this rewrite, I read quickly and try to catch where my plot falls…
Wild Word Friday! We couldn’t do a post last week about the word mother without including one this week about FATHER. My FATHER is a retired teacher and an active golfer. At age 84 he still regularly shoots in the low 40s and that’s after having back surgery last year. My FATHER always made life…
Congratulations to Tracey Monette our June 2011 Book Winner! Tracey, please email me with your choice of our 2 June Free Books and your mailing address. I’ll send it to you ASAP! During July and August we’ll take a break from book give-aways. I need a couple of months to restock my “give-away” library. I’ll…
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