I recently saw the film Florence Foster Jenkins, starring Meryl Streep in the title role. It’s about the New York heiress and socialite who loved music with a passion and supported musical productions with her patronage. She herself also sang—badly. Surrounded by a coterie of friends who complimented her singing and encouraged her, she performed private recitals and developed a devoted cult following.
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I adore watching the Olympics mostly because I love to watch the segments the reporters do on the athlete’s journey to win Olympic gold, or to just participate. Most, if not all, have had horrific challenges to overcome in their lives, and they were willing to share those experiences to the benefit of other Olympic hopefuls and the viewers. I especially love those who have overcome personally defeats and tragedies to rise to a individual victory.
Arguably, the most popular episode of the 1950’s sitcom “I Love Lucy” was the episode “Job Switching” in which friends Lucy and Ethel took a job in a candy factory. In that episode’s celebrated scene, they had to hand wrap individual chocolates moving along a conveyor belt into a packing room. They were able to keep up until the belt sped up resulting in a hilarious scramble to prevent any unwrapped candies from getting by.
As writers we may be sitting too much. We know there are options but we can’t quite make the leap. We hear about standing and writing but can’t afford a standing desk. We hear about the great standing treadmill. The balance board. They all sound fantastic but we either 1. Can’t get ourselves off the couch or 2. Look at the daunting price tags for every item or the space they would take up in our tiny house.
Ah, the scent of wood smoke and rain tells me another year is gearing up for the fall and it’s time for a well-earned break. You know the kind, the type you use to reward yourself for surviving another round of new projects, writer conferences, pitch sessions, the merry-go-round of queries, new releases, and the never-ending whirlwind of life in general.
Most writers, sooner or later, will hit the problem of the Sagging Middle. The story pacing slows—the plot might even bore you a little bit now—and you don’t know what to do about it.
I came across a brochure advertising a writing seminar to be led by Cheryl Strand who will forever look like Reese Witherspoon in my head.
Greetings! Hope your summer reading and writing projects are coming along nicely. If you’ve been busy with other summer activities you’ve still got a few weeks to read a novel or two or to pen a rough draft before fall arrives. I’ve personally been in the process of moving into a new apartment and am only now getting to some projects I’ve been planning.
In her book Thinking About Memoir, Abigail Thomas reminds us: “Details. Specifics. Eliminate all abstract nouns.” Of course, this rule holds true for writing fiction as much as memoir. Whatever you write, use specific details to craft a full, believable world.
When I was brand spanking new to novel writing I entered a local writing contest. Looking back I realize I entered for the wrong reasons. I wanted to win. I wanted a pat on the back. I thought that everyone who read my entry would Oooo and Ahhh. After all, it was a scene I had worked on for years and I thought it was really good. What constituted “really good” for me and now are two different things.
Last month I tackled the Sinister Synopsis and some time during my battle preparations it hit me that perhaps a discussion should be had on the various incarnations of paring a book down. In this season of conferences, authors are forever challenged to wrap their precious bundle of pages into smaller and smaller packages in an effort to snag the illusive attention of those fabled editors and publishers.
When I was a small child, it didn’t take me long to realize music could be used to tell powerful stories. I’d pop on a 78 record and listen till my parents would cry. I listened to songs like: “Blue Tail Fly” or “Jimmy Crack Corn and I Don’t care,” “The Big Rock Canady Mountain,” “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,”
You’ve finished your book. After all the hard work, you need a great title. But writing a title is a lot different from writing a full-length novel or even a short story. Writing a title takes creativity, but it isn’t storytelling—it’s marketing. Your potential readers see a title before they see anything in chapter one, and it has to hook them. Companies spend fortunes on finding the right name for new products—names that will resonate with consumers—and so should you.
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