Category: writing tips

  • Friday’s Findings

    Friday’s Findings

    A baseball pitcher imagines the pitch he throws-before throwing it. A gymnast mentally reviews her routine-before executing it. A tennis player sees the swing of the racket in her mind-before each game. Athletes use mental imagery to improve their performance and connect the body to the mind.  Writers should use mental imagery before they write…

  • Friday’s findings

    Friday’s findings

    Here are some articles on writing I’ve read and watched recently: Building a Social Media Plan Writing Scenes with a Purpose Photo by Anni Roenkae from Pexels

  • Friday’s Findings

    Friday’s Findings

    Recently, I visited my local Speed Art Museum and enjoyed the exhibit Isabelle de Borchgrave: Fashioning Art from Paper. She folded and molded Japanese paper into the shapes and folds of dresses and clothing of historical figures. Upon this paper, she painted intricate details of texture, patterns and created the illusion of actual cloth, actual…

  • Friday’s Findings

    Friday’s Findings

    He who controls the spice, controls the universe. Frank Herbert, Dune And he who controls the movie rights to Dune controls how people perceive the novel. Dune continues to be my favorite science fiction novel since my teen years. It’s been made for the screen three times so far: Dune (1984), Dune mini-series (2000), and…

  • Friday’s Findings

    Friday’s Findings

    Six to eight past midday. That is when I am writing. I don’t have the luxury of writing full time, so I need a schedule to motivate me to apply body to chair, fingers to keyboard.  A person can get a lot done in two hours. Some writing advice: Story Structure: How The Act Three…

  • Friday’s Findings: Record Your Feelings

    Friday’s Findings: Record Your Feelings

    First, here are some articles on writing I came across this week: Writing Do’s And Don’ts: Room Settings Is Self-Publishing a Good Choice for Your Novel? Novel writing: tips for faster first drafts Five Common Beginning Writer Storytelling Mistakes Everyone is getting the COVID-19 vaccine. Why can’t I? Some of us are choosing to get vaccinated. Some…

  • Start The Scene With Action And Dialogue

    Start The Scene With Action And Dialogue

    Okay, this is a long post. Just warning you. This good news is you can just read the highlights in bold to get the gist for each section. This post is for reference as you may want to experiment with the writing exercise I’ve fleshed out in the following paragraphs. In the previous post, I…

  • Friday’s Findings: A Fiction writing Experiment in Layering

    Friday’s Findings: A Fiction writing Experiment in Layering

    I’ve been experimenting with layering as a way to develop a scene. One aspect of layering I find helpful is how it can focus on the dialogue and action. I believe those two fiction elements are where a writer should begin when writing a scene draft. Here’s how I’ve been doing it: I make a…

  • Friday’s Findings

    Friday’s Findings

    Writing advice from one of my favorite science fiction authors: I’d just like to say that writing advice is just that: advice. It’s not a set of rules; it’s contextual. I know I’ve contradicted myself in the advice I’ve given in the past, and that’s because the needs of each writer and story are different.…