I want magnetic words like this so I can carry poems on my car with me wherever I go. | Poetry (Photo credit: Kimli)
It’s funny how I write a lot of poetry when I’ve been reading a lot of poetry. I don’t really read much of it at all, unless I have to for school. But this month, several of the blogs I follow have been posting poems as part of the Poem-a-Day Challenge. So, here I am, popping out poems when I should be working on my novel. But I guess I could use the distraction. Who knows, maybe my prose will be the better for it.
The view from my comfy chair at Cafe de Arts in Waukesha, WI proved to be inspiring last weekend.
I love blogging while sitting in a coffee shop. Whenever I meet my writer friend for a day of coffee and writing, I always end up putting my intended work aside to write at least one blog post. At our last session, I ended up writing three different blog posts before the afternoon was done.
Maybe I should just plan on going out to a coffee house once a week to write all of my blog posts. When I blog at home, my blog posts often come out concise, professional, and utterly boring. At the coffee shop, I get creative ideas and write posts I think people might actually want to read (I hope.) Continue reading “I do my best blogging at the coffee house”→
The Cafe de Arts has an interesting selection of artsy sandwiches to accompany your coffee while you hang out and pretend to write.
I’m writing to you this morning from Café de Arts in Waukesha, WI. It’s a cute little café in a big, old Victorian house with a huge sunflower painted on the side. I so want to open my own business in an old house in my town and paint the house purple with a huge sunflower on the side. I even have the house picked out. It’s a foreclosure that’s been sitting empty for about three years, just calling me to buy it.
I have a dream of opening my own writer’s studio/café/bookstore where I can hang out with other writers and discuss our craft in a homey setting. I’m picturing fluffy couches with books lining the walls, and a barista conveniently stationed in a cozy corner.
I’d hang out all day, writing in my notebook in between talking story with my customers. Sometimes, I would offer writing classes and workshops for more focused work. Ultimately, I would create my own little writing community where I can plug in to my local writing scene and keep my creative juices flowing while offering the same service to others. Continue reading “Dreaming, drinking coffee, and pretending to write”→
I know I’ve brought this up before, but I really wish people would spell-check their Facebook posts. I don’t know about you, but rotten spelling on Facebook has caused me to hide more than a few ignorant Facebook friends from my News Feed. Okay, so maybe you know that red squiggly line under half your words means you’ve misspelled them, and you’re just in too big a hurry to fix it at the moment. But do you realize what your momentary laziness says about you to your 437 “friends?”
Really, friend? Is that really how you think you spell “despise?”
I stumbled upon Kickstarter quite some time ago and played around with the idea of launching a Kickstarter project to fund my writing. Unfortunately, I really didn’t have an actual project to work on at the time. It was more of a general wanting to settle into the writing life and write *something.* Not having an actual project to launch, I gave up the idea and moved on. But recently, my professor and fellow writer, Shana Deets, brought up to my class the idea of setting up Kickstarter projects for our current novels. So, I headed over to the website to give it another look. Continue reading “What do you know about Kickstarter?”→
You have to figure out who your protagonist is today before you can ever hope to understand how she will react to the conflict you’re about to throw into her life. | The Protagonist (Photo credit: JerixTheKid)
As a reader, I expect a lot from a first chapter. I want to be drawn into the story immediately, from page one. I can’t stand a novel that makes me wade through three or four chapters before something “happens.”
Choosing a natural starting point is key. I wrote the first draft of my chapter one last week after completing several writing exercises for class. I was looking for that seemingly small action in my character’s life that would help set the story in motion.
I provided my character with a choice to make in the very first chapter. It may not seem like a huge choice at the time, but it’s one the reader will look back at four or five chapters later and realize that none of the conflict of this novel would have ever occurred had the main character chosen differently in chapter one. Continue reading “Chapter One: Where do you begin?”→
Last year was my first shot at National Novel Writing Month. I didn’t get very far at 11,654 words, but I still found NaNo a valuable experience. As I mentioned in a previous post, last year’s NaNoWriMo really pushed me to look at my writing process and figure out this whole outlining of the novel business. Continue reading “Who’s doing NaNoWriMo this year?”→
Summer might have been sensational if I’d managed to write something. (Photo credit: Lin Pernille Photography)
It’s hard to believe summer is over already. So much for all of that writing I meant to do this summer. I only taught one course over the summer semester, and that was online so I never actually had to BE anywhere. I did a bit of freelance writing, but the work was hard to get this summer for some reason. I had a lot of time to write, yet somehow couldn’t ever seem to get anything done. Now that I’m back to school with a full-time teaching schedule, I suddenly have all sorts of material begging to be written. It seems I need chaos in my life in order to write. Continue reading “I Need Chaos to Write”→
“The Name of the Wind,” a novel by Patrick Rothfuss, helped put me in the right frame of mind to get started on my latest writing project. (Photo credit: Rakka)
I can’t seem to write without reading. And when I do read, I always end up writing in the same genre I’ve been reading. When I read a lot of poetry, I find myself writing a lot of poetry. If I’ve read a couple of good YA novels in a row, my brain wants to write a YA novel. So, it was no surprise that an idea for a fantasy novel popped into my head right as I was finishing Patrick Rothfuss’ The Name of the Wind a couple of weeks ago.
I was out for my almost-daily walk one morning when a couple of interesting characters began to have a conversation in my head. Normally when this happens, I reach for a pen and paper (or my laptop) and rush to capture these conversations word-for-word. What I usually end up with is a small bit of compelling dialogue that goes absolutely nowhere. Continue reading “Reading and writing a new project”→
This is Zelda. Don’t worry, I don’t let her roam about outside unsupervised. She just likes to hang out on the patio with me while I sit in my comfy chair and read.
It’s been some time since I’ve posted for Poetry Friday, but inspiration struck a moment ago, so I decided to pounce. Is it too soon to hope I’ve finally recovered from my bout with writer’s block?
Today’s poem is inspired by my kitten, Zelda, who is turning out to have quite the personality:
Miss Kitty
My cat thinks I’m her prey.
She stalks me through the house,
Crouching on the stairs
Or behind a curtain,
Just waiting for me to pass
So she can pounce.
Write on the World 