Pat Bertram's Blog, page 327

The Most Unexpected Truth About Writing

My guest today is Lazarus Barnhill, author of the wonderful and profound Lacey Took a Holiday and The Medicine People, available from Second Wind Publishing. Laz talks about destiny, which is a perfect topic for his guest appearance here on my blog. We met in November 2007 during an online writing contest (TruTV Search For the Next Great Crime Writer Contest on Gather.com) where we finished consecutively  — 10th and 11th — out of over three hundred entries. Now we are colleagues again — this tim

Unreal Characters From Real Life

In a couple of previous bloggeries, I spoke of finding ideas, and how many thousands of ideas need to be accumulated to create a story. Ideas for characters — both believable and unbelievable — can come from real life. And not necessarily your own life.

In the 1973 book Cecil B. DeMille by Charles Higham, Higham talks about DeMille’s problems with Victor Mature while filming Samson and Delilah.  DeMille, who chose Victor Mature to be Samson because of his role in Kiss of Death, was horrified when

The Living Language of Dying

The language of death and dying is a fluid, living language because people are forever trying to blunt the cutting edge of grief by using new words.  Here are the living origins of a few words about death.

Coffin comes from a Greek word meaning basket, which is a euphemism for casket.

Crypt means concealed.

Pyre means hearth or fireplace.

Dirge came from the “Office for the Dead” which included an antiphon that began, “Dirge, Domine, Deus meus,” meaning “Guide, O Lord, my God.”

Embalm means to anoint

“Where Do You Get Your Ideas?” Silly Question, or Not — continued

A couple of days ago, I posted a bloggery about the question that so many writers hate to be asked: where do you get your ideas? I always thought it was a perfectly sensible question, and now that I am a writer, I know that it’s a perfectly sensible question. Sure, ideas come from our heads, but how? And why does one particular idea take hold when others don’t?

For me, a story usually begins with a series of ideas or a combination of events, but that initial idea is only the first of many. A nove

Pat Bertram Is Two Years Old Today!

On May 17, 2007, I — or rather, Pat Bertram — signed up for the Internet, and it was love at first byte. The entire world opened up to me, and I was reborn. I’d already written four books, but until I went online, I hadn’t started creating the author of those books. Who should I be? What name should I use? I considered using a male pseudonym, Cole Black, perhaps, since men with hard C’s and K’s do well in the public arena. Anyone heard of Steven King? Dean Koontz? Tom Clancy? Kevin Costner? Clint Eastwood?

“Where Do You Get Your Ideas?” Silly Question, or Not?

“Where do your stories come from?” A couple of people had a problem with this question in a discussion on Facebook today. One woman thought it was the worst discussion question ever. She said that our ideas come from our heads, and that it was the kind of question asked by an interviewer who hasn’t read the book. Another person agreed, saying that he expected the question from someone who knew nothing about fiction; that it had no single answer.

Whenever a guest on this blog talks about how he or

The Transformation of the Hero

One of the best books about writing I ever read was David Gerrold’s Worlds of Wonder. It’s a how-to for writing science fiction and fantasy, but it’s applicable to all writers since, in the end, we are all creating worlds of wonder.

The aspect of the book I would like to discuss is the transformation of the hero. In the beginning, the situation is introduced and the hero discovers she has a problem. She attempts action and, though she gives it all she has, she is beaten by the problem. She gains

DeForest Kelley: A Harvest of Memories, My Life and Times with a Remarkable Gentleman Actor

My remarkable guest today is Kristine M. Smith, author of The Enduring Legacy of DeForest Kelley: Actor, Healer, Friend, and DeForest Kelley: A Harvest of Memories, My Life and Times with a Remarkable Gentleman Actor. And she writes a blog with a perfect name: Almost Famous by De’s Fault. How cool is that? Kristine talks about writing a personal memoir:

It’s funny. No one showed me how to write a personal memoir before I sat down to write one.  I hadn’t studied the genre, and although I had read

Puzzling Out Promotion

Writing means many things to many people. It is like a mythic journey into self, other lands, other minds. It is like archeology, like exorcising demons, like channeling, like performance, like a faucet. It is like having an adventure. It is uniquely human, and it brings out the divine in us. It is breathing, a compulsion, a necessity, a reason for living, an obsession, a fun pastime. It is exhilarating and frustrating. It is liberating. And it is like comfort food, chocolate, and cherries. It i

On Writing: Perseverence

My guest today, Steven Clark Bradley , has been to or lived in 34 countries, including Pakistan, Iraq and Turkey. He has a master’s degree in liberal studies from Indiana University. He speaks French and Turkish. He has been an assistant to a prosecutor, a university instructor and a freelance journalist. Bradley is the author of four novels, including Patriot Acts . Bradley says:

I have always been a storyteller. It seems to have been something I was born with. It was actually my son who challenge