Category Archives: Writer’s Block

Tropes, Motifs and Being Meta

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Tropes, in one definition, are “devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members’ minds and expectations.” There are many types, but one, in the subcategory of devices, we see quite frequently in crime shows on TV or in mystery books. There is a crime, and an investigation, and the first suspect is never the true suspect. That also gets into the Red Herring territory. For myself, I have always tried not to rely on tropes, simply because I don’t ever want the reader to easily predict what will happen. But I … Continue reading →

Adventures in Indie Publishing, Incident #227:

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Amazon informed me that they pulled my book, Rain Falls, off sale, because they were getting too many complaints from readers about a chunk of missing text in the digital version. I realized immediately what was happening, and I rolled my eyes so hard, I could see my brain. My apparently way-too-clever brain. I made adjustments in the file to accommodate this, and added this note to readers in the front:   SPECIAL NOTE TO READERS Recently, Amazon pulled this book down, because too many readers were complaining about missing text. Apparently, those readers did not understand that the missing … Continue reading →

A Bowl of Cherries Vs. Sucking Beetroot

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Greetings, Precious Readers. As most of you know, I’ve had a rather eventful few years. Yes, i found the love of my life, and we are now happily engaged to be married. But getting to this point was a path strewn with rocks and blocks and sharp pointy things, and quicksand and befanged beasts, attacking from all sides. Okay, that might have been a tad melodramatic. But it’s been really challenging. It’s harder than it seems to leave everything behind and start from scratch in another country when you don’t even like to leave the house, and you’re also an … Continue reading →

Alien Methodology

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A few days ago, I began working on a story idea of the alien invasion variety, because the premise made me laugh and I thought it would be fun. Besides, I have wanted to do a series of short stories to test the market and see what people were responding to these days. Well, the alien invasion story became more like an alien visitation. And then, I found that while it was entertaining in premise, there was no real conflict going on, and none of the characters had much to gain or lose. That’s the death knell for plotting. One … Continue reading →

Word Count & a Teeming Brain

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One writer mentioned on her blog that she hates it when other writers have word count widgets on their blogs. It was as if they were showing off how much writing they got done. She didn’t do word counts herself because there were times when she took writing out and replaced it, and then the word count stayed the same even though she might have had a perfectly good day’s writing under her literary belt. I have word count meters on my blog, but not for the reasons the aforementioned writer says. I have a word count meter because first, … Continue reading →

Bloody Hands Every novelist should sit down at the keyboard with blood on their hands.

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Every novelist should sit down at the keyboard with blood on their hands. To know what it feels like to have been wronged and to have wronged. To be guilty and innocent. A novelist must have truly lived her life–sucked the marrow, tended the wounds, lashed out in fear and anger, in order to write a story that speaks authentically at deeper levels; that explores human nature and the human condition in all its beauty and ugliness. A novelist must have experienced life–that visceral knowledge that comes only from having felt the range of emotions, discovered the myriad permutations of … Continue reading →

Stupid, Honorable, High-Road Seeking Fool

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In a post from a few years ago (two posts, actually, under Going to Denver Because You’re Dead) I chronicled this transition of moving to Colorado to start a new life; again reinventing myself, with the hope of somehow finding my new place in this ever-changing, ever-challenging world.  I got rid of three-quarters of everything i owned, packed a U-Haul trailer behind my Cherryot, and off I went. A journey that lasted 30 hours on many days of little sleep. By the time I arrived in Denver, i was exhausted, lost, and had this sensation of being on another planet. … Continue reading →

Nietzsche, Relationships & the Creative Abyss

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One of the more useful lessons I’ve learned in my life is that we often have habits about how we deal with things, based on a set of information that may not be applicable anymore. This is why I have to do revisions. I have to re-vision something—look at it again—in order to discover whether or not the method I’m using still applies. Life is about change, and sometimes things change just enough, so that what you have always done is no longer a solution to the new situations and conditions that you are now experiencing. I might be squishing … Continue reading →

Is This What it Takes?

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Today, I worked on the 3rd book of the AKA Investigations series. I had to really think about what changed to make me go into that zone again–I’ve been trying so long to get there. One thing was that i just enjoyed a visit with my best friend who came to see me for 4 days. I hadn’t seen her in over 2 years. We had a great social time. Then, while she was here, I held my first local meeting of Kindred Ink Writers Initiative (KIWI) and got to talk a lot about writing, both in the group and … Continue reading →

Writer’s Block UNblocked.

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  Most writers eventually ask the question: “I’m really stuck with the plot/storyline of my novel. Do you know of something that will help me?” Here’s a list of things you can do to get unstuck. 1. Research. One thing that has always worked for me is new information. Do some reading about elements of your story. I’m not talking about style–I’m talking about research. For instance, read information about the city in which you’ve placed the story. Location can often become somewhat of a character in its own right. Read about any of the other elements in the story–like … Continue reading →

The Benefits of Well-Feeding

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Though I have had moments–and those moments often stretched into days and weeks and sometimes months–of a Dry Writing Well…I should never allow myself to worry about it too actively. I always reach a point where my well is filled again, to overflowing, and I feel that handling the burgeoning water of writing would require me to clone myself. Complete with an inflatable raft. Like now. After finishing my 13th book, I fell into one of those dry wells, and even worried about it. Yet, here I am with 8 or 9 new books yanking at my head, and I … Continue reading →