Day 5 of StoryADay SeptemberThe Prompt:Your character is alone in the woods and finds blighted trees, drooping plants…rot and slime everywhere. It once was beautiful but overnight is turning into a swamp–its not natural. Your character must get to the bottom of this and stop it before something they love very much is threatened also.It was... Continue Reading →
Out the Window
Day 4 of StoryADay SeptemberPrompt: A person wakes up, not quite remembering what happened the night before, and is surprised and upset by what they see outside the window. (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams) Out the WindowSheila swims up from dreams of fire to the burn of unwelcome sunlight on her... Continue Reading →
Fun House
Day 3 of StoryADay September.The Prompt:Your character is lost in a mazewith the instructions to find a very important document or treasure hidden in its center. Or perhaps the character has lost this important thing, and must find it before the wrong person does.“Let’s go to the fair,” she said. “It’ll be fun,” she said. Literally,... Continue Reading →
Clutch
Day 2 of StoryADay September.The Prompt: Your character’s an extremely talented pickpocket. He learned the skill when he was young and poor. Now he has a good job, a healthy bank account, and a respectable lifestyle, but he thinks it’s a shame to let such remarkable talent go to waste.ClutchI see him the moment I... Continue Reading →
The Kiss
Day 1 of StoryADaySeptember.The Prompt: Today, write a story that features people disappearing. Kissing Jake was a bad idea. I knew how it would end. The same thing happened when I kissed Ben. And James. And John. And Dashiell. And Trent. And Sarah. Let’s not forget Sarah. I really thought it would be different with... Continue Reading →
When Stephen King and Scott Westerfeld mingle in my mind
I have several TBR lists. One for fiction, one for nonfiction, and another specifically for books about writing and the writing industry. The result is that at any given moment, I am in the middle of at least three books. The result is often like walking through a chemistry lab and choosing random chemicals to... Continue Reading →
Not Your Average Juliet
Alice slips through the front door, her angel wings rustling as they brush against the door jamb. She pauses, waiting to see if anyone noticed the soft sound. Voices drift from the room to the right, involved in conversation, oblivious to her presence. The angel drifts to the stairs and begins the journey up,... Continue Reading →
Camp NaNoWriMo (or, What I Did on My Summer Vacation)
I just did something crazy amazing.I wrote a novel.In 30 days.You may have heard of NaNoWriMo (National Noveling Writing Month). The idea is to commit to writing a first draft of a novel (50,000 words) in the month of November. They also run Camp NaNoWriMo in April and July, which is the same concept, but... Continue Reading →
Ignite
Let me start with how I ended up reading this book.I am attending CampNaNoWriMo (I'll have more to say about that next week). The WordNerds have been providing short videos to campers. The WordNerds are a group of six women who write. The videos they post talk about writing, publication, and books in general. I... Continue Reading →
Mansfield Park
I just finished Mansfield Park by Jane Austen.Every girl loves Jane Austen, and wants to be a character in one of her books, right?I definitely do not want to be a character in this one. None of the female ones, at least.In Mansfield Park, Austen gives us a cast loaded with females that I don't... Continue Reading →
Susan Monroe McGrath 