Category: Writing craft

When Love Returns

When Love Returns (Gabriola Island) She vowed never to return … but fate had other ideas! When Julie Charters decided to return to Gabriola Island, she had no idea the man on whom she’d had a childhood crush would be so devastatingly attractive, and she wasn’t prepared to find him free. But she was a [...]

Sunday April 3rd, 2011 in Writing craft | No Comments »

The Garbage Can Test for Writers

EC Sheedy Tweeted me this afternoon about today’s blog, asking, “Are you doing the “garbage can? A little bit scary for writers, that one ” Although “scary” (and I do agree!), the Garbage Can Test has always come through for me. So, on request from a recent email conversation between Pen Warriors, here’s the Garbage Can [...]

Sunday February 6th, 2011 in Characters, Writing craft | No Comments »

Mary Ann Shaffer Makes Potato Peel Pie delicious!

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows My rating: 4 of 5 stars Slipping gently into the enchanting story world of “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society”, I’m falling under the spell of authors Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. The story is told through [...]

Friday December 24th, 2010 in Book Reviews, Writing craft | No Comments »

Heroism, romance, and good writing – Nevil Shute

A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute My rating: 5 of 5 stars Nevil Shute is one of my favorite authors, and A Town Like Alice is my favorite of his novels. A twentieth-century British author, Shute is probably best known for On the Beach, which became a major motion picture staring Gregory Peck and [...]

Monday December 20th, 2010 in Book Reviews, Writing craft | No Comments »

Hooked on J. R. Ward’s Brotherhood series

TDark Lover by J.R. Ward My rating: 5 of 5 stars I’d been resisting Dark Lover for months before I read it in 2006. I had read several of Anne Rice’s vampire novels a few years earlier and decided it wasn’t a genre I had any further interest in. So when one of my writer [...]

Tuesday December 14th, 2010 in Book Reviews, Writing craft | No Comments »

Finding treasure in Jack Reacher

Recently EC Sheedy suggested I try Lee Child’s Jack Reacher mystery series. Any recommendation from EC is gold, so I went looking for Jack Reacher and I found fictional gold. Years ago I began writing my own stories because I love great characters and I’d exhausted the local library’s ability to satisfy my hunger for [...]

Saturday December 11th, 2010 in Book Reviews, Great mysteries, Writing craft | No Comments »

Writing in circles until I laugh

See my post on writing in circles (Just write … again) on the Pen Warriors Blog Now that I’ve fantasized my way through a metaphor for one of my writing detours I’m laughing at myself instead of feeling frustrated. Much better Vanessa.

Tuesday November 9th, 2010 in Writing craft | No Comments »

Multi-Level Excellence – Revising with James Scott Bell

I attended James Scott Bell’s “Multi Level Excellence” workshop at the Surrey International Writer’s Conference on October 24, 2010. James (JSB) is an excellent presenter, and offered  writing advice I found practical and sometimes exciting. At a workshop the previous day, JSB had mentioned Jack Bickham and Dwight Swain, two of my favorite authors writing [...]

Sunday October 24th, 2010 in Writing craft | No Comments »

Successful Social Media – without zombies

Here are my  (very) rough notes from today’s “Succeeding with Social Media” panel at the Surrey International Writers’Conference” (#siwc2010) Panelists: Sean Cranberry (http://booksontheradio.ca), k c dyer on the computer (kcdyer.com), Arthur Slade (http://arthurslade.com), James McCann (http://jamesmccan.info) Sean Cranberry – booksontheradio.ca. Blogs once or twice a week, with a picture. Tries to keep it consistent. Get [...]

Saturday October 23rd, 2010 in General, Writing craft | 6 Comments »
Powered by Netfirms