Six Sentence Sunday



      “You came,” he whispered, his voice scratchy.

      “And you thought I wouldn’t?” I tired to keep it light-hearted. I knew we were facing a bad situation here when I saw the blood leaking through his fingers.
       He tried to smile at that, but it came out as a grimace and then he collapsed. I scrambled to his side.



For those new to this, the rules are simple:

1) pick a project – a current Work in Progress, contracted work or even something readers can buy if you’re published

2) pick six sentences

3) post ‘em on Sunday

See? Easy. Want to play? See the site for information on how to do just that: http://sixsunday.com

If you have a Twitter account, you can add the hashtag #sixsunday to your tweets when you tweet a link to your Six Sentence Sunday post. If you’re a writer (regardless of published/unpublished status) come join us!

Becoming a Successful Writer is a Matter of Work Ethics

Jack London



In this article about Jack London and his writing career, we’ll see that sometimes it’s hard to know where to start. In John Barleycorn, Jack London's vivid memoir, he describes a predicament familiar to many an aspiring artist: "My difficulty was that I had no one to advise me. I didn't know a soul who had written or who had ever tried to write. I didn't even know one reporter."


Barleycorn talks about London’s struggles with alcoholism and homelessness as he put forth great effort to write. His book is also acts as a mentor to every writer as he passes along these tips about his formidable work ethic.

1. Be decisive, choose something, and then attack it.
That’s exactly what he did, writing so much that he forgot to eat at times. Quoting from his book:

“Heavens, how I wrote! Never was there a creative fever such as mine from which the patient escaped fatal results. The way I worked was enough to soften my brain and send me to a mad-house.”

How many of us have felt this way? Writing with such passion and for so long that our family and friends think we forgot all about them.

2. Be persistent, endure struggle and hone your craft.
This is really the only thing you can be in order to accomplish anything. It’s all like stacking bricks, coming together a little at a time. Eventually writing gets more effortless. He goes on to say:

“I struggled along, stood off the butcher and the grocer, pawned my watch and bicycle and my father's mackintosh, and I worked. I really did work, and went on short commons of sleep.”

3. Develop a routine and be relentless about it.
We all are different and have to figure out what work for us as individuals, but it is very important to be relentless in your pursuit. Mr. London tells us:

“I confined myself to writing and typing a thousand words a day, including Sundays and holidays; and I still studied hard, but not so hard as formerly… There was so much to learn so much to be done; that I felt wicked when I slept seven hours.”

This rather hits the nail on the head for me. I get very little sleep because, as he says, there is so much to learn and it takes time to put into play what you have learned. You can’t do it while you’re sleeping. Luckily, I’ve been able to survive on very little sleep.

4. Settle into a groove and make the act of creating part of your life.
At some point, all of this becomes your way of life. You days are spent in service to your craft. If you’re lucky enough to make your living at it, your life will be less structured later on and you’ll actually be able to relax a little, maybe. He writes:

“Each morning, at eight-thirty, having been reading or correcting proofs since four or five, I went to my desk. Odds and ends of correspondence and notes occupied me till nine, and at nine sharp invariably, I began my writing.... and my day's work was done, so that at eleven-thirty I got into a hammock under the trees with my mail bag and the morning newspaper. At twelve-thirty I ate dinner and in the afternoon I swam and rode.”

I can’t envision being so successful I can ever lie in a hammock, let alone doing other pursuits aside from writing, but we never know what the future has in store. Writing is a lonely solitary business and best left to those who don’t have many other obligations.

Jack London wrote some of America’s most lasting stories, but at first, this had a price, as all worthwhile endeavors do. Read the full article here:
http://99u.com/tips/7204/Call-of-the-Wild-Jack-Londons-Advice-on-Honing-Your-Creative-Craft

Six Sentence Sunday



      I heard the grating sound of gravel next to my car door as I was fishing for the flashlight I kept in the glove box. I jumped, startled, peered into the darkness, saw nothing and decided it was my imagination. Maybe my roommate, Claudia, was right and I had been watching too many of “those” movies.
      Claudia was okay, just more serious than me, but it was a good move when we decided to move in together a year ago and share expenses. Nothing was cheap anymore.
      Where is that darn flashlight?




For those new to this, the rules are simple:

1) pick a project – a current Work in Progress, contracted work or even something readers can buy if you’re published

2) pick six sentences

3) post ‘em on Sunday

See? Easy. Want to play? See the site for information on how to do just that: http://sixsunday.com

If you have a Twitter account, you can add the hashtag #sixsunday to your tweets when you tweet a link to your Six Sentence Sunday post. If you’re a writer (regardless of published/unpublished status) come join us!

Writing Tips from Nicholas Sparks

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Well I spend more time reading about writing. I swear, I guess that’s a good thing and bad thing. I came across these tips from Nicholas Sparks in an interview in USA Magazine. They may be useful to you, especially if you write romance.


Mr. Sparks says he needs to know about his characters before he starts writing. I think I shared with you a couple weeks ago my method for drawing up character profiles. It does help to know who will be in the story before you get started. Although, if you’re like me, you tend to add a minor person here and there as you go along, depending on where the characters take you. It is their story after all.

Anyway, Mr. Sparks went on to say the following things are important:

Determine the character’s age. Age informs you about the dilemma the character will face in the story. You can’t write a story about everlasting love if the character is a teenager.

Mr. Sparks says he asks questions because a protagonist without an obstacle doesn’t turn the pages. The best way to do this is by asking the question “What if?”

He goes on to say it’s best to decide on the answers to essential questions before you start writing. “I have to know the age of the characters; I’ve got to know how they meet. I have to know the conflict that’s keeping them apart and what brings them together.”

He finished by saying, “I have to know how it ends. For the author, there are three possible endings: happy, sad, or bittersweet.” He goes on to say that, you have to hit the right tone. “You don’t want to be cliché or melodramatic, and you want the ending to evoke genuine emotion, and that’s tough.”

I never know the endings of my stories when I start out. I do have my character profiles and the place and time for the story, but that’s about all I start with. My characters lead me to the end and through all the scenes as the book goes along.

I do agree that the ending has to be happy, sad, or bittersweet, unless it leaves you hanging in a way that leads into the next book in a series. The emotional end is good for romance. I tend to like the endings that are a bit shocking and not something I totally expected. This works well with other genres, especially mystery and suspense. What do you think?

Six Sentence Sundays

I found the whole setting to be on the spooky side and began to wonder why I had agreed to meeting anyone out here in the middle of the night.  The phone call did sound urgent, prompting me off the couch, getting me out of my apartment.

Everything looked abandoned, as you would expect it would be in the middle of the night.  The hoot of an owl brought me back out of ghostly thoughts.  My hand instinctively reached over to lock the doors.  My spine tingled, my nerves were on edge, and I felt cold even though it was a balmy June night.

For those new to this, the rules are simple:
1) pick a project – a current Work in Progress, contracted work or even something readers can buy if you’re published
2) pick six sentences
3) post ‘em on Sunday
See? Easy. Want to play? See the site for information on how to do just that: http://sixsunday.com
If you have a Twitter account, you can add the hashtag #sixsunday to your tweets when you tweet a link to your Six Sentence Sunday post. If you’re a writer (regardless of published/unpublished status) come join us!

Introducing the NEW Kindle Fire



We now have kindles with multi-touch, kindles with keyboards, and kindles in color, with prices ranging from $69 to $499. I guess technology keeps moving forward to lure the consumer to the ever changing and improved products.


We now have storage space from 2GB to 64 GB on the device alone and more if you choose cloud storage. The battery life ranges from 8.5 hours to 3 weeks. The color devices use more battery of course, giving the consumer the choice of whether this is worth it or not. Personally, unless you’re reading full color magazines, color newspapers, or watching TV or movies on the device, I see no reason to have the color for books.

Screen size is also now between 6 inch and 9.7 inches and weights vary. Devices are now equipped with a glare proof screen and illumination so it is easier to read in bright sunlight or low light conditions. There are even skins available to personalize your reader. These start at $24.95.

I don’t have one of these devices and have no plans for getting one, but ebooks are here to stay and I do have the kindle for PC. I’d rather read the old-fashioned paper book, but these e-readers definitely have an advantage when it comes to storage space. I just wonder how you would charge the device if the power grid ever had a failure, but I guess that is having a pessimistic attitude and I’m not a pessimistic person. Yet today anything seems possible.

To learn more about these devices here is a link:
Kindle - Meet the Entire Kindle Family

Six Sentence Sundays

From my WIP Untitiled



“Well yeah, I guess,” I mumbled and tried to sit up, groping around for the shoes I had tossed off earlier.  I wondered if I should even get on the road, but I felt compelled to help if I could.

I rummaged around on the cluttered coffee table, knocking things on the floor, as I searched for the notepad and pen I knew was there – somewhere.

For those new to this, the rules are simple:
1) pick a project – a current Work in Progress, contracted work or even something readers can buy if you’re published
2) pick six sentences
3) post ‘em on Sunday
See? Easy. Want to play? See the site for information on how to do just that: http://sixsunday.com
If you have a Twitter account, you can add the hashtag #sixsunday to your tweets when you tweet a link to your Six Sentence Sunday post. If you’re a writer (regardless of published/unpublished status) come join us!

Five Ways to Increase Suspense in your Writing

Creative Commons Wikimedia



I thought I would share something I read in the Writer’s Digest Newsletter with you.


We may find this useful to keep suspense in our writing.

1. Keep the Action Intense: Remember your story will lose momentum and the reader’s interest if a significant amount of time goes by without any action. This could mean you are using too much back-story.

2. Make the Danger Feel Real: The characters must act as if the threat to them is real in order to make the scene believable to the reader. Keep pressure on the characters, even if they aren’t in physical danger. This is no time to stop for back-story, or to pursue any romantic undercurrents between your characters. Weave in back-story elements, preferably in dialogue.

3. Keep Emotion High: The lifelong happiness of your characters is at stake, even if they aren’t in physical danger. By keeping emotion at the core of your story, it reminds your readers that the situation is important.

4. Repeat the Action, Phrase or Event: The first line of dialogue or use of action may be casual getting the readers attention. The second use makes it clear that the information is important. The third use is forceful. The stakes are enormous, the back-story given by the first two have laid the groundwork, preparing the reader, now on the edge of their seat waiting to see what will happen.

5. Hide what the Characters are Thinking: The heroine may see the clenched jaw of the hero and assume he is mad at her when all along he may be thinking about his toothache. If you let this information out, the heroine won’t know what the hero is really thinking, but the readers will. When they do, all the suspense of the scene is gone.

Just remembering these five simple steps will set up the momentum of your story and keep it going to the end.

Six Sentence Sunday

From my untitiled WIP



The phone roused me from of my thoughts about the dilemma I was in.  I had been contemplating what to do about the other night.

“Hullo,” I answered in a slurred voice.  Sure, I had been drinking.  What else could I do in my situation?  Yes, it didn’t solve the problem I had, but it took the edge off.

For those new to this, the rules are simple:
1) pick a project – a current Work in Progress, contracted work or even something readers can buy if you’re published
2) pick six sentences
3) post ‘em on Sunday
See? Easy. Want to play? See the site for information on how to do just that: http://sixsunday.com
If you have a Twitter account, you can add the hashtag #sixsunday to your tweets when you tweet a link to your Six Sentence Sunday post. If you’re a writer (regardless of published/unpublished status) come join us!