Randy Susan Meyers's Blog, page 7

Holiday Shopping to Help Crafters, Artists, Small Shops, and Museums.

                      I love shopping in small shops, getting gifts via independent craftspeople, and finding treasures in museums—especially, during the pandemic, when so many craftspeople are struggling. If anyone out there wants to buy me a present (oops, I mean buy a present for someone you really…

(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…

Terrified of Writing that Novel? That’s Good News!

I played with the first line, “Everyone hates a fat woman,” for a decade (and published four other novels) before writing Waisted. The story of women obsessed with the scale screamed in my head, but I kept the words locked away. Because writing it meant facing myself. Writ honest, the novel would have to include tales of…

Ten of My Top TV Pandemic Binge Recommendations

ER: if you want to forget life for hours at a time, this is my top recommendation. This addictive medical soap opera of a series holds up incredibly well—the acting and attention to medical details! (We kept looking up words. Asystole! Babinski! Sats!) And with more diversity than most current shows, the industry can learn…

Ten Books for Ten Moods

  If you read as I do (unceasingly, never sticking to any one genre, and always with a backup book (or ten) just in case, you’re always seeking books to match your current mood, yes? Pride and Prejudice won’t do when you’re in a Frankenstein mood. There are times nothing will work except dark and broody-moody, to…

A Novel Twenty Years in the Making

  A guest post by Ellen Meeropol Some books take a very long time to be born. My fourth novel, Her Sister’s Tattoo, took twenty years. That’s far longer than the longest gestation known, which is 22 months for an African elephant.            Why?            Partly because…

Writers Locked-In (Part Three)

    How have I been handling lockdown? Um…look above. See all those rocks? (And the pile is growing. . .) Why am I painting so many rocks that my daughter now calls me the rock hoarder? I’ve learned rock painting is one of the few activities throughout which I cannot eat. Obviously I will…

Writers Eating, Baking, Escaping & Musing: Part 2

You might be seeing this on Saturday, but I wrote it on Friday. Why am I telling you this? Because above is my #casualfriday outfit. The only thing this outfit is missing is a soundtrack, yes? So, here it is. For those not born in the fifties or sixties, this song explains the intensity of…

Writer’s Reading, Eating, Outfitting, Binging, and . . . Part One

In this time of sheltering in place, as we take on our new hobbies (I, for one, am trying to use up all my most hated, bad-buy, hair products—let nobody say I didn’t know how to best use this time) what better thing to do than peek into other homes? Thus, in the spirit of…

Writing & Reading Those Special’ Romantic Scenes: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

  I tried to think of a, um, sexier title for this post, but they all sounded, um, icky, and the last thing I want when I’m writing about sex is an ick factor. Writing about icky sex? Terrific. Writing icky about sex? Terrible. When my first novel released in 2010, Pia Lindstrom, an interviewer…