Keeping the Muse

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By Neva Bodin I spoke at a writers conference a couple of years ago about keeping the muse. I’m thinking all writers must have one. What is a muse? One source said the word originated in Greek literature and was introduced by Chaucer in his writings. It is “Any of the nine daughters of Mnemosyne and Zeus, each of whom …

The Runaway Character

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By Joni M. Fisher @authorjonimfisher Did you ever have a character demand a bigger part in the story? Luigi Pirandello wrote a play titled Six Characters in Search of an Author in which characters, who were created but never used, barge into a rehearsal and demand to be included in a production. That reality-twisting, groundbreaking play premiered in 1921. While …

Make Your Metaphors Marvelous

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by Leslie DeVooght Don’t waste a chance to make your writing flourish with weak metaphors or worse, clichés. As a writer of Southern Fiction, sometimes it’s hard for me to not use one of the tried and true phrases. I mean “bless your heart” and “she’s as pretty as a peach,” will work in a pinch, and they do scream …

Something to Write About

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by Suzanne Lee I was eight years old when I first put a poem on paper. I had sung and dreamed many before then, an unconscious imitator of Nash, Stephenson, and Walter de la Mare, of Shakespeare’s elegant conversational cadences, of the rich flavor of hymns and chants in Latin and English that had pervaded my childhood, and of the …

How Understanding Hebrew Concepts May Revolutionize Your Storytelling

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by Donna Wichelman In recent months, I’ve discovered the rich Hebrew concepts of Tohu V’Vohu and Shalom, which have revolutionized how I’ve started to think about my storytelling. This comes at a time when I’m starting to develop a World War II slip-time novel, called the Power of the Thorn, which takes place at a time in human history when …

New Year, New Tricks

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By Angela Hunt I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions . . . probably because I’m failed at so many in years past. What I do believe in is learning new tricks, and the new year is the perfect opportunity to start learning a few. I like to try something new with each book I write. Of course, the subject …

Three Word Pictures to Describe my Writing

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by Dwight David Croy My writing thought life is best described as a percolator, puzzle, and a microscope. Time is needed to think, think, and think before writing. A percolator cannot be rushed but it is working on that perfect cup of coffee. My generation is from the “Java Jive” sung by the “Ink Spots.” Most words in that song …

Write More Than Fiction to Sharpen your Writing Craft

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By Cindy Ervin Huff We are fiction writers, weavers of stories that share messages of hope with the world. But there are times when our bucket of story ideas goes dry. These are the times we can turn to writing non-fiction using our fiction skills to add interest to those projects. I’m assuming you are in the Word daily and …