It has been an interesting year; one that has changed my perspective on writing in general and my personal goals in particular. I really started to think about what my writing means to me when Robert Jordan passed away.  It struck me as very sad that he was unable to finish his masterpiece.  Then I learned that even during his final days, Mr. Jordan was working hard to ensure that it would be finished.  His readers would not be disappointed and his characters would get their final day in the sun.  He was dictating notes right up until his final week, I understand. Then, Terry Pratchett announced that he has a rare form of Alzheimer’s.  He shrugged it off by […]

I have a confession to make… I let the holidays interfere with my writing. There, I’ve said it.  Now let the healing process begin. I actually went away with the best of intentions.  I backed up my writing to a USB Flash drive, I packed away my laptop and my mouse.  I put my iPod into the case. It wasn’t until we were 30 minutes from home that I realized that I had left my power supply at home.  Oops!  Ah but for the best laid plans… Still, my sister-in-law (who graciously let us stay at her house) has a computer.  There were even moments when the kids weren’t on it playing Runescape.  Still, I never quite summoned the energy […]

As many of you already know, I’m a firm believer in the power of networking.  As a writer, it is part of my job to not only write interesting stories, but to meet people who can help those stories get into the hands of readers.  That group of people includes publishers, editors, other writers, marketing folks, agents and, of course, the readers themselves. One thing I don’t think I’ve ever said is that the networking portion of the job is easy… or fruitful… or without stress.  I’ve never said that because it is easily the toughest thing to do.  At least it is for me. Some people have the gift of gab and can walk up to anyone and begin […]

By the time this week is over, you will probably be well and truly tired of hearing about creating characters. Isn’t it great? I personally will echo my fellow SWN’ers in saying that I love having the chance to look at and feed off of each other’s ideas.  It makes things so much easier, if not more interesting. As I’ve mentioned in the past, most of my stories are character driven.  But I’ve recently been reviewing some of my writing and I’ve discovered something:  my protagonists have a great deal of depth, but the antagonists seem to be lacking a certain something (they are mostly one-dimensional, I would say).  It became very apparent as I was reading one of my longer stories.  […]