Bev Pettersen's Blog, page 59

Free Advice Small Business: Writing Through The Holidays.

Small Business: Writing Through The Holidays

If you Google writing through the holidays, you’re going to find dozens of articles written on the subject, including a great one dated last December by our own Ruby Sister Addison Fox. Many authors offer the same advice, and I’m going to bring up the same points too later, because they’re good advice. However, today, and for your sanity and mine, I want to approach the subject a little differently.

If you look at my post title, you’ll note the fir...

A Writer’s Thanksgiving Prayer

‘A Writer’s Thanksgiving Prayer’ Thank you to the Power that has blessed me with the talent of creativity and for the fortitude to make myimagination take life. This talent gives me confidence in who I am. It has led me to a host of like souls that I now considered loved friends. It has also earned me the respect and admiration of those who enjoy the fruits of my mind. Thank you for the gift and for the support of my family and friends who do so without complete understanding of my desire. Ma...

Nostalgic Romance

Nostalgic Romance is my own personal term for any blast-from-the-past romance novel set between 1950 and present day. (Romance Writers of America now considers 1950 as the cutoff date for differentiating between historical and contemporary novels). Sorry, RWA, there isn’t much contemporary about a book set in the 60s or 70s when personal computers, the, Internet, and cell phones didn’t yet exist. Still, that period isn’t exactly historical, either. It is, however, filled with nostalgia—a wist...

The Day It All Began…

Do you remember the first day you sat down to write a story? The moment when you went from being an aspiring writer or someone who sometimes thought about writing to actually becoming a writer? How old were you? Ten? Thirty? Sixty-five?

I think whenever and however we sit down to do it, there is something that unites us all in that moment. The Writer Nation, coming into our own.

For me, it felt like something clicking into place. Before that, I would make up elaborate stories for my Playmobil...

Putting on Your Big Girl Pants

Sothis isn’t going to be one of those how-to posts some of the Rubies are so good at (I’m looking at you, Hope Ramsay :))

But this, rather, will be more confessional. See, I’m going to totally get naked here. Don’t worry. You won’t have to look at this 44 year old pudgy body, but I will open up about my career – the good, the bad, and the meh – for the last year.

Let’s begin with a brief bio: finaled in Golden Heart, sold first book three months later, sold two more five months later, embarke...

Writing From The Heart

Why do readers read? They want to escape their world. But you knew that, because you are also a reader.

The greatest writers through time have said that the best fiction takes a reader through a fact finding journey and also on an emotional journey. The emotional journey is what connects you and the reader. Without it, you’re just relating what happens in your characters’ lives. Bonding with the reader is the most important job you have as an author. But how can you do that? There are many...

Organizing from the Inside Out

Happy Monday! Okay, so we don’t always celebrate Mondays (unless it’s a holiday). But often Mondays are beginnings. The beginning of a new job, or a new project or even a new healthy way of life. There are many avenues to a healthy life. Today I’m going to touch on the mental health that comes with an organized work space.

I am definitely not the most organized person, not even close. I really don’t stand a chance living with three kids, three guinea pigs (lots of cavy paraphernalia), two su...

Veteran’s Day

This is a Ruby post from five years ago. Nothing has changed except we’re all a bit older. Please take the time today togive your special veteran a hug.

Prompts To Get Your Writing Motor Running.

Some fun today to pump your writing hormones. Give me a story with no more than 50 words from one, or each, of these writing prompts.

FIRST.

One of the last shipments to a U.S. research base in Antarctica before the onset of winter darkness was 16,500 condoms for a crew of 125 people.

BTW this comes from a newspaper article. Don’t believe me? Here is the link to the story.

NEXT.

And finally.

Twotrucks, one carryingbeerand the other haulingchips, collide on the interstate.

Do not over think t...

A Writer’s Struggles

It could happen to any of us. In fact, I’m certain it’s happened to a number of us. This year, it happened to me. I won’t say “writer’s block,” because that’s not quite right. It was a sense of disillusionment, I guess. A crisis of faith (that the storieswouldn’t come to me anymore). A frustration and tiredness that seemed to seep into my soul and sit there, filling me up so that no words could break through and get to the paper. Or so it seemed most days.

It started earlier this year, and I...