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Concocting My Novel

A while ago, I wrote about creating characters people can relate to. Good guys aren’t all good, and bad guys aren’t all bad. I don’t know about other writers, but those who know me well will recognize that my protagonist, Lou Skalney, loves coffee as much as I do....

A Writer’s Nightmare!

I If the blank page had teeth, it would bite me. Fortunately, I met a terrific group of writers here in Tennessee, and one gentleman captured writers’ block so well in his poem, A Writer’s Nightmare!, I asked if I could share his opus with you. R.L. McCullough...

On the Clock

I’m a member of an online Christian writers community called “Faith Writers.” https://www.faithwriters.com/ and I wrote this for one of its weekly writing challenges a while ago. I just discovered it again dozing in my document file and decided to share it with you....

Verisimilitude and Other Challenges

Writing has some unique challenges for the aspiring scribe. Not getting sued first comes to mind, but there are others. Somehow, we must spin a yarn in such a way that you, the reader, buy into our story. It must have verisimilitude, or at least the sense of...

Denouement

I thought I would offer you a quick read today. This is an example of flash fiction, where an entire story is told in a few paragraphs. This is a photo of the remains of a real, once elegant, 19th century hotel. It was my inspiration for Denouement. The grand old gal...

Idioms and Other Literary Musings

The English language is full of idioms, where at one time a phrase meant one thing, but over the years the meaning changed. Sometimes we writers avoid these over-used idioms because we see them as cliches. An editor once accepted my short story for publication but...