By Janet Morris Grimes It’s that time of year again. Time to get our hands dirty. Time to prune old branches and brush to make room for new growth. Time to attempt to add splashes of color or garden vegetables or frame our yard with budding trees. Time to dig a hole in the ground, cultivate seeds, and come up …
Beating the Rain
By Chandra Lynn Smith I’m sitting at my desk this morning pretty much feeling like the weather. Pennsylvania is known for its fickleness about changing seasons. We can go from winter to spring to summer to mud all in the same day. And yes, around here we truly do feel like we have a fifth season called mud. This morning …
Just Show Up
By JPC Allen I thought nothing could be more difficult than writing a novel during a pandemic. Trying to make sense of the world at that time dried up most of my creative juices. And what little that was left was consumed by becoming a teacher to my children. Was I ever wrong. I began to write my latest cozy …
Promise
by Janice Cantore As I sit down to start the draft of a new book, it occurs to me that the beginning of a new book, like the beginning of the new year, brings bright promise. I have a new cast of characters, a new storyline, and fresh ideas. The problems that twisted up my last book are gone or …
The Talent of Tenacity
By Tanara McCauley @TanaraMcCauley There’s a story my father loves to tell to anyone who’ll listen. It’s an embarrassing boast of the my-kid-could’ve-been-this variety, and I shake my head whenever I hear its intro. He recounts how, when I was a scrawny eighth-grade sprinter on the track team, I missed the start of an 800-meter race due to an untimely …
Hello 2024 – New Year, New Goals?
by Lori Domingo @loridomingo22 I’ll begin by wishing everyone a very happy New Year! Honestly, it doesn’t seem possible to me that another year has come and gone. 2023 was a mixed bag of successes and failures, with plenty of trials thrown in just to keep me humble. Part of what I like to do at the beginning of the …
How a Troublesome Manuscript Was Saved
by Glynn Young Hold on to those unfinished or problematic manuscripts. You never know when they’re due for a rebirth. You pour everything into creating a manuscript. You type “The End.” You smile and give yourself a well-deserved pat on the back. It’s done. You finished it. You set it aside for a few days, and then you reread it. …
It Can’t Be Right When It Feels So Wrong
by Sarah Sundin @SarahSundin Chapter four nearly did me in. Chapters one through three flew as planned, and I knew chapters five and six were going to be exciting. But chapter four took me a full week to write. I’m a plotter, an outliner. Before I start my rough draft, I know what needs to happen in each scene. This …
The Practice of Perseverance
By Lisa Kelley @LisaKelleyWrite Waiting to be published can be daunting as well as disappointing. I closed out 2022 empty. I had semi-finaled in a writing contest but didn’t progress. One judge suggested I shouldn’t have made it to the semi-finals. I had a manuscript rejected, and I’d finished my fifth novel only to discover, after one of those hard …
Where Do I Fit In?
By Marilyn Turk @MarilynTurk In this vast, unpredictable world of writing, do you ever wonder where you fit in? I do. Although we try to avoid labeling people, the publishing business does this for us. Here are some examples: 1. Prepublished? Published? Multi-published? 2. Are you with a major publisher? Small press? Independent? Hybrid publisher? 3. Are you an A-listed …
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