Randy Susan Meyers's Blog, page 4
August 11, 2023
Woman Vs. Man: Getting Ready for an Event
Woman (me, for instance) weeks (months?) getting ready for a book launch (or any event): Buy a new dress.Return dress.Decide to wear an edgy jagged-hem blouse.Realize anyone using the word ‘blouse’ is too old for edgy. Buy pants.Wonder what the ‘young’ word for pants is.Google.End up teary seeing choices of pants ‘types’ and future as, with ... Read more
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First Lines; Last Lines
That perfect first line. How we chase it, scrambling phrases and our brains, seeking magic words to pop open our stories like magic keys. ( Sometimes, I want to create an entire book when a great beginning sentence pops into my head.) “There’s one thing I’m sure about. An opening line should invite the reader ... Read more
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July 26, 2023
From John’s Bargain Store to Clothing Lust
My childhood clothes resembled the old Catskills joke about food: The food is terrible at this hotel—and the portions are way too small! My mother brought my sister and me to John’s Bargain Store for our clothes. Our clothes were ugly, and we didn’t have enough of them. Having a fashion sense is no easy task for ... Read more
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July 19, 2023
Should You Be A Writer?
At first, writing seems the perfect job for a control freak. * You are alone! At your desk. Making your very own world. * These characters you’ve dreamed up jump when you say jump. Okay, perhaps they squirm away from your outline a bit. Or they do that thing—musing about the time in high school when they almost ... Read more
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June 29, 2023
5 Facts About That Bad Boy of Yours
Perhaps the lure of the bad boy is similar to the temptation of climbing Mt. Everest. It feels so good to conquer it and reach the top—despite all the pain you felt on the ascent. But getting back to that thrilling peak (The glitter! Finding out you are the only one!) means bearing again the sulks, the ... Read more
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October 19, 2022
Novels About Novelists
Does everyone have sub-genres within genres for which they hold an unusual fondness? I can’t resist a good infidelity story (really, can anything beat Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow?) I can rarely refuse the intricacies of mixed-marriage love (Meeting of the Waters by Kim Mclarin) or a memoir about substance abuse (Drinking: A Love Story by Caroline Knapp.) I ... Read more
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June 18, 2022
Family? Culture? Imagination? The Amalgam of Fact & Fiction
by Randy Susan Meyers When you grow up a fatherless daughter of a fatherless mother, where does your outlook on family begin? Culture? Nurture? My mother worked hard, partied harder, and resembled a movie star when dolled up. My sister and I watched her transform as we three raced around, getting ready for school and ... Read more
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April 11, 2022
When Facebook Friends Ask ‘Anything’
Answering questions off the cuff is my favorite way of presenting—surprising (embarrassing?) myself with on-my-feet answers as I stumble into learning things I didn’t know about myself. Thus, when author Anjali Mitter Duva asked me to participate in the Arlington Author Salon, I was thrilled—until I cringed, imagining filling fifteen minutes without seeing or interacting with ... Read more
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(Impossibly Condensed) Checklists for Writing a Novel
Every time I teach “Structuring a Novel With Good Bones” I learn again how difficult it is to condense the process into six hours . . . and how exhilarating it is to step back and look at the entire process. At day’s end, it seemed as though I’d climbed a mountain where (for a ... Read more
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Debut Books by Writers Over 40
(first published in 2011) Originally, I tried to resist writing this 9especially after my plea against categorizing authors.) Plus, so many of us hide our age in this world of never-get-old, unearthing this information, even in our Googlized world, was difficult. But when, along with the plethora of lists of writers under 40, I was faced ... Read more
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