Nancy Christie's Blog, page 77
February 24, 2016
Wednesday Writing Inspiration for 2.24.16
Words are the gateway to another world, and storytellers hold the key… Share stories with a child and let your imagination take you back in time to your own youth.
February 23, 2016
Bringing the Past to Life: Guest Post by Steve Kemper
Today at The Writer’s Place I’m pleased to welcome award-winning author and journalist Steve Kemper.
I first connected with Steve when I interviewed him on my One on One blog, and had the pleasure of reading his book, A Labyrinth of Kingdoms: 10,000 Miles Through Islamic Africa detailing the exploits of Heinrich Barth.
And when his newest book came out, A Splendid Savage: the Restless Life of Frederick Russell Burnham, Steve was kind enough to send me a copy, knowing I am a fan of his work a...
February 18, 2016
The Writer’s Place Welcomes June Hardison, author of The Long Walk!
Today author June Hardison has stopped by The Writer’s Place, as part of her blog tour for her debut inspirational novel, The Long Walk.
(Check out her other stops at http://www.plaintalkbm.com/june-hardison/)
About The Long Walk
The Long Walk tells the story of Donovan Evans, a high school baseball standout who has everything going for him, including his ego. Trying to escape the pressures of parents and prospective college coaches, Donovan finds himself arrested and headed towards communit...
February 17, 2016
Wednesday Writing Inspiration for 2.17.16
Ah, books… digital versions notwithstanding, there is something about the smell, the feel, the heft of a print book that generates excitement, whether you are the author or the reader.
How many are too many?Every now and then, I walk through my home, look at the books on my shelves and think, “I really need to start winnowing these down.”
I take one off the shelf, intending to put it in the “to be donated” box, and idly flip it open. And before long, there I am, caught in the author’s words...
February 16, 2016
Hashtagging Your Way To Social Media Relevance: Guest Post from Jay York
Jay York, social media expert
Hashtags.
You may know what they are, you may even use them on occasion inyour Twitter posts.
But do you really know how to make the most of those little checkerboards?
Well, if you don’t, today’s guest post from Jay York will give you the info you need! And Jay knows whereof he speak. As asenior digital marketing strategist for EMSI Public Relations, he has firsthand knowledge of hashtags and all the other social media tricks of the trades to maximize a company’...
February 10, 2016
Wednesday Writing Inspiration for 2.10.16
The odds are in your favor, assuming you have even a small gift for writing.
How much is enough?The more you write, the more you improve. The more you improve, the better your writing becomes.
The better your writing becomes, the greater your chance of connecting with readers.
But it all starts with writing… lots and lots and lots of writing!
How much writing have you done today, this week, this month? Can you do more?
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February 3, 2016
Wednesday Writing Inspiration
Wednesday Writing Inspiration for 2.3.16
What short story has “kissed” you lately?
Share the title and author here!
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What We Do When We Don’t Want to Write
Even before I started writing this, I engaged in some other “Author Avoidance Activities” (aka “AAA”), namely, feed the cats, put in a load of laundry, read Sunday’s New York Times (yeah, I’m a little behind) and watch CNN.The way my schedule is set is that I come into my office sometime between 5 and 6 AM, after my first cup of coffee has jolted my brain awake, and spend 30 minutes on my fiction.
Not on reading emails, although I may start my email program which immediately is flooded with spam offering to make me “rock hard”—the sender apparently under the misapprehension that I posses a gender-specific body part that should be “rock hard” when called upon.
Not going online via Google Chrome or Firefox, although I do click the internet button in case I need to look up a word or a fact or some obscure statistic.
Not updating my datebook, moving items from yesterday or last week or last month to today in a vain attempt to change items on my To-Do list to “Have-Done” status.
No, those 30 minutes are spent working on the aforementioned work-in-progress (currently at more than 57,000 words) or writing a new short story, or editing a short story that needs some tweaking, or submitting a short story to a lit mag (I try to keep 12 in play at any point in time—tough to do on days like yesterday when I got two rejections, one after another), or searching for and/or submitting a query to a literary agent. (My first novel is ready, willing and eager for representation.)
But today I just can’t face the fiction. Not the novel, not the shorter works, not the endless round of short story submissions-rejections-submissions, with only an occasional “okay, okay, we’ll take it” breaks in the routine, not the “please please please represent me” begging letters that go into that vast void known as agent-land.
The current novel, in particular, is giving me a hard time. I have a fairly good idea of how I want the novel to end, what is the conflict the character has to resolve and the role the supporting characters play in getting her from Point A to Point Z.
It’s just that things keep getting in the way. Issues like:
I keep forgetting when certain events had taken place, causing me to slog back through the ms. in search of dates and other specifics. (I started doing an outline, finally, but it’s tough going.)
I lack important information, particularly about physical therapy after a bad ankle sprain. I have PT pal who has agreed to meet with me to share the bounty of his knowledge but we haven’t done that yet so I keep putting “TK” (for “to come”) in key places.
I realize as I work on the outline that some things don’t make sense, other things need to be explained, and the character of the mother isn’t as clearly delineated as she should be. Is she a complainer? A supportive parent? A little bit of both?
I could, I suppose, shelve the project but I don’t want to because I’m afraid that I won’t be able to get back into it.
I should, I suppose, keep plodding through instead of, oh, painting the block walls in the basement, sorting through several decades-worth of paperwork to set aside those that need to be shredded, or write blog posts—all of which I have been doing all January long.
But what I will do, once this post is done, is go back to DISCOVERING DIANA (the novel in question) and at least write something for the next 30 minutes because if I don’t, it will never get done and regardless of how it turns out or if it ever gets published, it first needs to be written, start to finish.
But to encourage me and make me feel like I am not the only writer out there engaged in “AAA”, tell me what you do when you don’t want to write. Or can’t write. Or are afraid to write.
And, even more importantly, how you stop doing it and get back to writing.
(Read other posts at my Focus on Fiction blog : http://www.nancychristie.com/focusonf...)
February 2, 2016
Cleaning up "Speaker Pollution"
More at http://tinyurl.com/zu3xykd
