When I woke up this morning I really didn’t have anything specific in mind for today’s Morning Music. It’s raining and cold again after a week of sunshine and spring and I’d likely have gone with something moody to suit the rainy day.
As I was doing my usual morning caffeination and catch-up I noticed [...]
Hugh MacLeod, better known to some as GapingVoid, has announced that he has deleted his Twitter account.
MacLeod - cartoonist, author, blogger, all around Renaissance man - will be sorely missed by his legions of followers. You can subscribe to his blog to keep up with him now.
It seems that the more popular Twitter becomes, the [...]
I’ve been tagged by Loud Mouth Man to write 8 things. I’m not really sure where to begin but let’s see what I can come up with.
In 1996 I won Family PC Magazine’s best kids’ website contest for my site Maddy Mayhem’s Kids’ Stuff which was later mentioned in several other magazines & newspapers worldwide [...]
A couple of days ago I saw an absolutely incredible teapot on Etsy and shared the link with an online social group I’m involved in.
My friend Seana said, “Oh my god, Merlene likes teapots! Let’s all buy her teapots!”
She’d remembered a teapot story I’d told a couple of years ago.
Years ago when I was first [...]
In response to being tagged in Jeff Pulver’s “Bucket List” 2008 note on Facebook I’ve spent a day thinking about what should be on my own list. In 2007 I made the decision to end my marriage. A relationship that I’d been in since I was 14 years old. This means that pretty much [...]
While the idea of the novelist crouched over his paper (typewriter, keyboard) in poor light in a cramped attic may seem romantic it does little to add to your productivity or to your health.
Getting up and stretching or even walking around a bit every 20-30 minutes can relieve cramping and stress in your body and [...]
Garbage in = garbage out.
Writing a novel during NaNoWriMo is a challenge of endurance. If you’re eating too much junk food with the excuse that you don’t have time to eat healthy because you’ve only got so many hours in a day and you need to get this novel done dammit you’re going to crash.
Novel [...]
You’ve written 5000 words of your NaNoWriMo novel and you’ve hit a wall but you’ve got this great idea for a different novel that you’re just itching to begin. You think about deleting that first novel or setting it aside and beginning from scratch on the new novel idea. After all you still have lots [...]
Great dialogue is what makes your characters realistic. It’s what powers your plot plot. Without good dialogue your novel will seem flat and your reader will quickly lose interest.
I’ve a list here of some places to read up on how to create good dialogue:
Writing Dialogue
How to Write Dialogue
Tips on Writing Better Dialogue
I find I get [...]
Many novelists use music to help their writing. For some, one CD seems to resonate with the feel or the mood of the novel they are writing. Imagine writing a novel set in the highlands of Scotland a couple of hundred years ago. Now imagine writing that novel with the sound of the Beach Boys [...]
