Roxann Delaney's Blog, page 3

Finishing the Dream

WRITING WEDNESDAY
We all dream of things, and especially of doing things.  Writers want to sell a best-selling book.  But without a book to sell, the dream will never come true.

Instead of dreaming, let's start doing.

The first key to the writing dream is to write.  Yeah, you probably already knew that. ☺  But it bears repeating.  Keep telling yourself WRITERS WRITE , and it will become so ingrained in you that you'll start writing, hopefully on a regular basis.  If...

My Dream Vacation

FRIDAY FANTASY

This is how it starts.  My dream vacation.  On Amtrak.

While many people would choose to fly, I want to see things along the way, not just clouds.  Driving would work.  That's the way it was done when I was growing up.  Our family vacations were often two weeks, and stopped at all kinds of places on the way.  My mother enjoyed waterfalls and caves.  We stopped at them all.  I swear we did.  After a while, one waterfall looked much like...

Begin Your Dream, Then Finish It

WRITING WEDNESDAY
Millions of people dream of writing a book.  In fact, it's said that in the U.S. alone, 200 million people want to write a book.  Only a small percentage actually do.

Maybe you're one of that small percentage who has actually sat down at a keyboard or held a notebook and pen/pencil in hand and started writing.  If so, I salute you!  It's the first step of making your dream come true.

But there's more to it than that first step of beginning.  The hardest...

What Happened to Monday?

Let's just call this Thoughtful Tuesday, because that's all I have.

To be honest, what happened to Monday is that it was such a blah day, I didn't care if anything got done.  No, not a bad day or even a down day.  It was simply BLAH.

Somewhere, as Monday finally wound down---or would that be up?---the blah moved on.  Blame it on spring break coming to an end and life getting back to normal.  My normal.  Maybe it was watching the WSU Shockers lose in the NCAA tournament,...

Settings Make a Difference

WRITING WEDNESDAYS Where you set your story is a major factor when writing.  Sometimes your characters or the story itself will automatically tell you where your story is set.
Is your story set in a city or a small town?  Is it rural?  Is it set in the present, past, or future?
After choosing where to set your story, the first thing you need to do is to familiarize yourself with it.  
This morning I saw a book on Amazon that I thought might be a good one to buy and read.  I...

Life Changes with Learning

Quicky Hail Storm March 15, 2014It's been a crazy winter for everyone.  Because of it, we've all learned a new term: Polar Vortex.

Now, I'm sure this isn't something weather people suddenly came up with, but in all my years, I can't remember ever hearing it.  Yeah, that many years.  And now I sound like my mother. *grin*

As I posted on Facebook this past Saturday, I heard the rain, thought one of my car windows was down a couple of inches, and ran outside to roll it up.  I'd...

Building Character(s)

Basic (romance) Characters
No GMC today.  Instead, we'll take a look at characters before getting into the goals, motivation and conflict of our characters.

Let's face it, characters are what make a book. If you don't have strong characters---and I don't mean the kind that lift weights---your characters and your story will fall flat.  And so will you.

Characters can have many traits.
Physical: hair color, eye color, height, body type, etc.Overall physical: Handsome, beautiful, plain, sc...

Another Step Back

1915 LibraryI honestly can't remember a time when I didn't read.  I don't necessarily mean literally read.  My much younger days, even before learning the alphabet, included a large stack of Little Golden Books.  Although I only have a couple of them left, I remember the drawings in them, if not the words.

But it wasn't only those cardboard and colorful children's books I read.  There were trips to the library.

The other evening, a friend and I were talking about the big lib...

Monday Mania

That cute little graphic on the left isn't as generic as many might think.  There's no reason why it shouldn't be.  But...

For the past few months, I've been watching college basketball.  More precisely, my two favorite teams, the Wildcats (Kansas State University) and my hometown Shockers (Wichita State University).  I've been a WSU fan for much longer than I've been a KSU fan, but because they're in different conferences, it's okay.

KSU didn't do too badly...playing at "ho...

Creating Your Characters

WHITE RABBIT SYNDROMENot only am I late, but I was busy with things I'd left unfinished, while racing toward a deadline.  I actually did write Wednesday's blog...late Wednesday night, then forgot to post it.  Earlier today, I worked on a blog post for Bits & Bytes, my writers group's blog.  In fact, while doing that I remembered it's Friday.  Duh!  The topic of our blog this month is "Your book is a movie!  Who’s in your dream cast?", so it was natural of me...