It was one of the lowest points of my life. My career was in tatters and I was in a job that I hated. I felt like a total failure. Then I had a herniated spinal disc that required emergency surgery. I’ve since learned that anesthesia, or maybe it’s the trauma of surgery itself, causes…
The Latin phrase, in medias res, means “in the middle of things.” Some famous stories have been written with this technique. On the first page readers find themselves right in the middle of intrigue, disaster, war, crime—some heart-pounding situation—with nothing leading up to it, as if the reader just fell from the sky to land…
10. “Did you finish the book yet?” (Variations: How close are you? When will you finish? Are you actually going to finish this one?) 9. “When will it come out?” Don’t bother explaining that finishing the story is only the beginning. Folks outside the industry tend to romanticize the process: we authors toil with quill…
Stuck for a way to begin writing? Describing a photograph may break a stalemate. Friend and muse, Katherine Key, snapped this compelling photo along a Western Colorado Trail. Inspired by this photograph, a description can be literal, as shown below. Or lyrical, as the final example suggests. Either approach will get the juices flowing. A…
“Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.” – Joy Harjo In my fiction writing, I examine the complexities of familial love, usually as it relates to the bond between mothers and daughters and how it can be fraught with challenges, maybe…