Welcome to My Blog!
I inhale words and exhale stories. Sometimes, those stories are short and carry a life lesson. Welcome to their world.
Four Tips to Fix Story Pacing
If you’ve ever got bored with a book, it was probably an issue with the pacing. How do you know what's the right pace for your story?
A Little Romance for Your Fiction Friday Freebie
This month I’m sharing a portion of THE UNEXPECTED HOMECOMING, a collection of three novellas about the soldier without a mission and the cowboy about to lose the ranch. It is the only story out of six that were written in Melissa Storm’s Sweet Grove that is still published. I adore the meet cute for …
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Counting my Blessings…again
Last year, one of the most popular posts on this blog was my recounting of blessings near Thanksgiving. This year, I’m counting them again. Did you know that humans have what’s called a negative bias? That means, when we recall things, our mind tends to focus on the bad or hurtful events rather than the …
Five Ways to Create Conflict in Your Story
Author and writing teacher Larry Brooks is famous for saying, “No conflict? No story.” But it can be difficult to understand what creates conflict effectively in your fiction. Because conflict is NOT melodrama. You know, when one character goes on a rant and steps on everyone’s toes and is basically a drama llama. There are …
This Month’s Free Fiction
This month’s excerpt is from the second book in my REFLECTIONS series. A Laboring Hand tells the story I imagined for Martha and her two siblings. We know a few things about them, but much of it always made me curious. Why was Martha in charge? Why wasn’t Lazarus in charge of their family since …
Craft Engaging Dialogue in Three Steps
When I ask my clients about their writing weaknesses, a large percentage struggle with crafting great dialogue. If you’re one of those, keep reading for three tips to spice up your on-page conversations. As a developmental editor, unrealistic dialogue is something I run into with most newer writers. The words sound forced and not at …
Four Plot Boosters
Plot is the external events in your story. And sometimes, we write ourselves into a corner or we get bogged down in the “muddy middle” of the story. This post offers FOUR ways to boost your plot when the inevitable slowdown occurs. First of all, I want to say that we’re often too nice to …
Fiction Friday: Free Excerpt Ahead
It’s that time of the month: FREE FICTION. Today’s excerpt comes from a collection of fantasy short stories—featuring cats. For those of you who’ve been following me long, you know I’m a self-proclaimed crazy cat lady. I had so much FUN writing “The Tail of Two Kitlings” for this anthology. Read on for an excerpt …
Hey Writer! Get Unstuck
Are you stuck in your writing process? You’re not alone, my friend. Even multi-published, bestselling authors get stuck sometimes. But how do they get unstuck?That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? And it’s one that a team of seven certified writing coaches want to help you answer. If you’re discouraged about how few words you’ve written, …
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