By David E. Sharp Gripping the reins of my imagination, I pull them back with a white-knuckle grip, desperate to gain altitude before this whole thing crashes into the dark, cold ocean of dejection and everything goes to pieces. My caffeine gauge hovers over empty. My single operational engine sputters and sparks. How did itContinue reading “Tail Spinning through Tale Spinning”
Tag Archives: Writing
Writing My Way Through 2022
By Shelley Widhalm In 2020, I was pretty much done with writing, overwhelmed with trying to keep my freelance writing and editing business afloat and supplementing it with a gig grocery store job. Despite my sort of giving up, I still went to conferences and belonged to writing groups like Northern Colorado Writers (see https://northerncoloradowriters.com).Continue reading “Writing My Way Through 2022”
The Guts of Good Horror
By Katie Lewis
Books I Blame
by David E. Sharp I was not born with a laptop and a mug of black coffee in my hands. This is a fact for which my mother is still grateful. It took a lot of tragic, misguiding circumstances to set me on my course to become a writer. The story, as I tell it,Continue reading “Books I Blame”
Battle of The Bards: Poetry Is A Challenge
By Shelley Widhalm Writing a poem a day is like marriage—it’s a commitment that takes loyalty, honesty, and authenticity. Saying “I will,” I undertook the Poem a Day Challenge in September 2017 and have written nearly 1,600 poems since. I missed a few days in winter 2020 during surgery recovery and at the end ofContinue reading “Battle of The Bards: Poetry Is A Challenge”
Headshots. Not Only For Zombies.
By Brian Kaufman In my novel, Dead Beyond the Fence, headshots were a pretty big deal. The ambulatory dead kept coming unless you wallop them above the shoulders. My protagonist used a tool formerly used to open crates or pry apart boards. This prompted one kind reviewer to comment, “Kaufman is the new king of theContinue reading “Headshots. Not Only For Zombies.”
High Stakes
By David E. Sharp Stakes are all about what’s on the line in your story. But the only thing really at stake is your reader’s attention. It’s part of our job to readers invested in our story. If we do it well, we might even keep them on the edge of their seat.
May The 4th Be with You
By Eleanor Shelton It was recently May 4th. Don’t mock. An argument could be made that it is a more appropriate holiday than the following day. George Lucas has said that he was inspired by of the earliest Celtic stories of Arthur and the paladins in The Mabinogion and reimagined it as a space odyssey.Continue reading “May The 4th Be with You”
Word Count Woes
By Eleanor Shelton As we all know, stories have a beginning, middle, and end. Nothing new there. But just how many words it takes to get there is highly regulated, especially for debut novelists. All novels should be at least 60,000 words. Otherwise, they’re novellas. Less than 20,000, and they’re short stories. And depending onContinue reading “Word Count Woes”
Accountability Partners: Man, Beast, or Tech
By Eleanor Shelton My Fitbit died last week. It had always been on my wrist (other than showers) for the last year and a half. It held me accountable for moving more, celebrated when I moved a lot more, and actually told me the time. Something is missing that had become part of me.
The Writing Bug 