Terry Shames's Blog: 7 Criminal Minds, page 216

Rule Breaker

What authors particularly inspire you? Do you read them when you are working on a book? BY RM 
An author who inspired me some years ago, when I was looking for representation, is Louise Penny. Along with enjoying her Gamache series, it was also a matter of the permission she gave me to break some rules, or what I thought were rules.
Louise Penny proved:
            Yes, I can set my stories in Canada, where I live.
   &n...

Inspiring Writers

Q: What authors particularly inspire you? Do you read them when you are working on a book?
-by Susan


I fall back to Jane Austen when I’m pushed to say who really influences my writing. That combination of wry wit, social satire with deft and utterly believable characterization gets me every time. How is it that every time I read one of her novels, I am caught up in a drama whose ending I know as well as I know the names of my children? To me, it’s magic. I’m not sure how she does it, but I rere...

Ernest Borgnine

Who is the first person who encouraged you to be a writer?

With beginnings like mine, and with the necessity to apply Hollywood-style spin to beef up one's bonafides, it'd be easy to tie this week's question back to some well-meaning teacher back in Chicago Public Schools who saw better in me than I believed lay within. Maybe she'd resemble Michelle Pfeiffer. Read from the classics and explain them to us in our own street semiotics.

Is it a Gangsta's Paradise, Coolio? Is it, really?
"So, like, K...

The Significance of Setting in Noir

by Harley Mazuk

I’d like to welcome guest blogger, Harley Mazuk to the blog! A little bit about Harley:

Born in Cleveland, he majored in English literature at Hiram College in Ohio, and Elphinstone College, Bombay U. He worked as a record salesman (vinyl) and later served the U.S. Government in Information Technology and in communications, where he honed his writing style as an editor and content provider for official web sites.

Retired now, he likes to write pulp fiction, mostly private ey...

Kid, you’ll move mountains!

by Dietrich Kalteis
Who is the first person who encouraged you to be a writer?
I realized the magic of words as soon as I learned to read. It was Dr. Seuss and the Grimms and when I got a bit older I read every Hardy Boys’ story cover to cover. And I guess I wanted to write like Franklin W. Dixon. Books transported me to other places and times: Last of the Mohicans, Call of the Wild, Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, Treasure Island and lots more. Then later it became Steinbeck, Keroauc, Salinger and K...

Encouragement can come in different forms

By R.J. Harlick
Who is the first person who encouraged you to be a writer?
A tough question. Oh, I know, the story is supposed to be that some luminary, some important person in my life saw promise in my early attempts and instilled in me a desire to become a writer.
Sorry, guys, I can’t think of anyone. Sure, I had one or two English teachers in high school, who introduced me to the fun of writing fiction through class assignments. I always enjoyed these forays into creative writing more than...

Who encouraged you

Who is the First Person Who Encouraged me as a writer? From Terry Shames
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Changing Projects in Midstream

Craft: Have you ever stopped abruptly and taken up a different project and never gone back to the old one?

by Paul D. Marks

Before I get to this week’s question, a little BSP. I’m thrilled to announce that my short story, “Ghosts of Bunker Hill,” was voted #1 in the 2016 Ellery Queen Readers Poll. In fact, I’m blown away. I want to thank everyone who voted for it! And I’m tempted to give Sally Field a run for her money and say, “You like me, you really like me,” or at least my story

West Highland No Way

 “Have you ever stopped abruptly, taken up a different project and never gone back to the old one?” by Catriona
Oh yes. And I know exactly why too.
I had written Dandy Gilver novels set in Kirkcudbrightshire, Queensferry, Fife, Perthshire, Edinburgh, Dunfermline, Wigtownshire, Moffat. (See map and never wonder why I'm a writer, not a cartographer.)
Why does this look like a lost Simpsons character?
Then someone asked why Dandy had never been in the West Highlands - the bit above the dotted l...

Finisher-completer here...by Cathy Ace

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