Today is National Encourage a Young Writer Day.
It is also X-Chromo’s birthday.
She recently graduated from college with a degree in creative writing.
This is what happens when you encourage a young writer.
I couldn’t be more proud of her than I am.
Category: Writing
Observations on the writing life
Walking as a Writing Tool
It’s National Walking Day.
Henry David Thoreau wrote: “Me thinks that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow.”
My critique partners walk nearly every day.
Julia Cameron, in her wonderful The Artists Way, recommends a daily jaunt as a way to unblock creativity.
Psychology Today has this to say.
I have a walking machine my husband used as a clothes rack until quite recently. I need to get back on a schedule and start using it for walking.
Finding the time is tough. It’s so much easier to find excuses.
Do you walk?
Opening Day!
It’s opening day of baseball season.
It’s also National Find a Rainbow Day.
What do the two have in common?
Baseball season is the pot of gold at the end of winter.
Pen or Pencil? Plotter or Pantser?
Today is National Pencil Day, which got me to thinking about how my preferences in writing implements have changed over the years.
When I first joined RWA, I ordered something called The Prescription for Plotting by Carolyn Greene. (Unfortunately, I can’t find a working link to share here.) It was a 3-ring binder with lots of pre-printed forms, a mechanical pencil, and a Clic eraser. That’s when I came to truly appreciate a good mechanical pencil and learned that I will never ever ever again be without a Clic eraser.
Being an organic kind of writer (some people call us pantsers), I never did fill out all of the forms, although I did give it my best shot. The beauty of using a pencil was the ability to erase something that wasn’t working. Making notes in pencil makes plot point more fluid than writing in ink.
Pencils are for pantsers.
Two of my critique partners are organized writers (some people call them plotters). They fill out index cards by the thousands. Color coded. In ink. And the process works very well for them.
Pens are for plotters.
When I wrote in long-hand, I used a fountain pen. Then I switched to an Alphasmart. To a laptop computer. But sometimes, when I want to fill out those charts to try to get a handle on a plot point, a character, or just to “think on paper,” I use a pencil.
Do you prefer a pen or a pencil? Are you a plotter or a pantser?
National Get Over It Day with Author Ryan Jo Summers
When you are handed a shocking diagnosis, with horrible and scary images and then left with more questions than answers, it’s a lot to be expected “to just get over”. The future is suddenly uncertain while worry and fear become your new best friends. Dealing with a chronic medical condition is not something one “just gets over”. It’s impossible to when all they can do is look forward to an unknown future.
But what if you also suddenly fell in love? How does that piece fit into the puzzle your life has become? Now you are asking for someone new to join in this uncertain future with you. Isn’t that asking a lot? Family, sure, we expect to mold around our new life, but a romantic partner?
My character, Kasey Griffin, in Glimpse Eternity is coping with Multiple Sclerosis. She’s doing so-so with it overall. Then hunky musician Ben Salem rolls into town and their chemistry is perfect. And undeniable. Kasey has seen how her father loved her mother before the MS took her and wonders how Ben will react for the long haul.
While Kasey can’t ‘get over’ her MS, she can work past her fears of its uncertainties if she wants to have a future with Ben. The question is: will she? Or will she allow them to drive Ben away?
Glimpse Eternity is a sweet contemporary romance novella:
Kasey Griffin is determined to prove a diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis isn’t going to ruin her life or define her expectations. She is dedicated to her pregnant sister, her pets and operating her bookstore, ‘The Next Chapter’. She has everything she needs to have a full and satisfying life–the daily challenges of her condition notwithstanding.Then hunky musician Ben Salem rolls into town. Ben’s subtle charm quickly reminds Kasey she is more than a woman with a disease, she is also a woman with a heart. And Ben wants it.Will Ben still desire her once he learns the terrible details of her condition?
Glimpse Eternity is available at Amazon and Smashwords.
Ryan Jo Summers is a North Carolina writer who likes to pen romances with a twist. Love stories blended as inspirational, with paranormal, suspense or time travel–or several at once. She also writes non-fiction for regional periodicals. Her dad is a songwriter and his aunt wrote poetry, so Ryan came by the writing gene honestly.
Her hobbies include poetry, bird watching, houseplants and gardening, gathering with friends, hiking in the forest, painting canvas and ceramics, and working wiggly word find puzzles, mah johngg or chess. She lives in a 1920 cottage with a menagerie of pets. She often daydreams of the shore and frequently uses water as settings in her stories.