As a mystery writer, I’m intrigued by the notion of clues. The old “list of stuff in a scene” or, “what the butler saw” are clue-types I still enjoy. But to be honest, I often miss clues in mysteries, relying on my “gut feeling” to decide who the culprit of the crime is. To me,…
Tag: Liesa Malik
The Value of a Compliment
So. Here we are, six months into the “New Year.” How are your writing resolutions going? Are you getting 2,000, or 10,000, or whatever daily word counts you aspired to complete? Me either. Have you finished that first novel and started in on your second? I’m right with you on missing that one too. In…
The Freedom to Write
Happy Memorial Weekend! So many things to celebrate—the beginning of summer, the joy of family, our gratitude to veterans and those who lost their lives in war. Like most of us, I hate the idea of war. I know what it’s like to lose a loved one suddenly, and to have my child killed in…
5 Ideas to Boost Your Writing Confidence
The blank page is to many authors what a large audience is to a shy and introverted soul asked to give a speech. Terrifying. And it doesn’t help when writing friends are completing that next chapter, submitting another short story to an anthology, or simply garnering another 50 readers to their blog. Before succumbing to…
Playing with Rhetoric
In this year of politics we are likely to hear the common complaint, “Oh, that’s just the candidate’s rhetoric. Wait until they’re in office and we’ll see what really happens.” Rhetoric definitely has a bad reputation. The first definition in the dictionary implies that rhetoric allows people to use language for influence and persuasion, but…