Terry Shames's Blog: 7 Criminal Minds, page 79

Blurb: “There were no misspellings” from James W. Ziskin

Blurbs. We all need them. We all write them. Give us some phony/funny suggestions for boilerplate blurbs.

A dear friend of mine who passed away late last year was a world-renowned scholar. A true giant in academic circles. And he’d been a damn good baseball player in his youth, too. He once told me a doctoral student of his asked him for a letter of recommendation. As the student had not impressed him, he felt annoyed by the request. He agreed to write the letter all the same and provided the fol...

Swinging the world by the tail

Do you draw inspiration from rejection or encouragement? Who is your biggest champion? In order to improve, do we need cheerleaders? Or doubters?

by Dietrich

When I started calling myself a writer, I accepted that if I was going to put my stories out there, there would be both acceptance and rejection, hopefully more of the former. But, since rejection was inevitable, I considered that how big a slap to the face I would allow it to be. And since I had decided I was in it for the long run, I though...

Truth in Blurbing

 

Terry here. We are discussing blurbs, those tantalizing bits of recommendations on the cover of a book. Authors feel like they need them; and authors are asked to write them. Here’s my take on the reality of blurbs. 
 Early on in my writing career I made the mistake of eagerly saying I’d be happy to write a recommendation in the form of a "blurb" for someone’s book, and then found myself stuck when I really disliked the book. I mean REALLY disliked it. 

I ended up writing a half-hearted blurb, b...

It's Not You, It's the Market

Do you draw inspiration from rejection or encouragement? Who is your biggest champion? In order to improve, do we need cheerleaders? Or doubters?

Brenda here.
Rejection. Such an emotionally charged word that brings out the insecurity in all of us. One of the first things an aspiring author is told is to expect a lot of rejection -- to learn to put the countless rejection letters and 'just not right for our list' lines into a box and duct tape the lid shut. 
But can rejection have a good side?
If thi...

Dreaming Alone, by Josh Stallings

 Q: How do you beat procrastination? Do you use writing prompts? Tricks to get your motor running and word count climbing?

A: “Blue crazy fall creampuff dreaming alone car carcass oh here we go too long blinking stop light off pleasure timing clod hopper clinging to face long sea turtle love killing Aperol kicking ballerina sad time green supper oh damn vomit comixs fritz can go bigger than ever.”

WTF?

A: That is word-vomit. This was a two minute version but I usually do six minutes of writing gibb...

Reader, I married/murdered/misunderstood him, by Catriona

Q:  Clichés in our fiction. Are they universalities worth exploring or simply lazy shortcuts?

I don't mind a plot cliche in the least. Recently, when I thought I had gone to see the Oscar-bothering and deeply miserable Power of the Dog, but realised I was actually watching Dog, starring Channing Tatum, the galactic level of cliche in the plot was fine by me.

To give you an idea, in case you . . . tried to see it and ended up watching Power of the Dog instead, let's say . . . CT is a veteran with PT...

A little bit of elbow grease... by Cathy Ace

How do you beat procrastination? Do you use writing prompts? Tricks to get your motor running and word count climbing?

My first reaction to this question is: hmm…so the implication is that procrastination is a bad thing. Frankly, procrastination is the only reason my house gets cleaned; if a deadline is looming, it never seems quite as critical as washing the kitchen floor, or giving the bathroom a good scrubbing down…but maybe that’s just me.

Honestly, because of the way I make an idea for a st...

Who Loves a Trope?

 Q: Clichés in our fiction. Are they universalities worth exploring or simply lazy shortcuts?

- from Susan

 

Trope: a very predictable or unoriginal thing or person.

 

Cliché: a statement that is obviously true and says nothing new or interesting.

Well, what writer would cop to either of those? Of course everything we write is original, unique, surprising! 

Let me offer an alternative perspective. “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in wan...

Ten Years On ...

by Abir

 

With the kind permission of my fellow writers, I’m making a departure from this week’s topic to talk about something else. This Friday I want to tell you a bit more about my journey to becoming a writer – not so much the practical side – we’ve discussed that in the past - but the emotional side. Why? Because this week marks a decade since one of the key milestones in that journey. 

Ten years ago this week I lost my job.

 

It came as a shock. I’d never been unemployed before. I'd gone from s...

Come Rain or Shine from James W. Ziskin

Do you use weather in your books to create atmosphere or mood? Talk to us about meteorology.

This month we’ve been given a choice of two questions to answer each week. I picked the first one. The one about weather since my upcoming release is entitled Bombay Monsoon . What could be more suitable?           Weather


Bombay Monsoon (December 6, 2022, Oceanview) is set during the rainy season in India in 1975. That is during the “ monsoon” in “ Bombay ,” in case that wasn’t clear from the title. Monsoon s...