A THOUGHT FOR THURSDAY

Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose
by
John Singer Sargent

A thought for Thursday... and any other day you like:

I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see. 

             John Burroughs

DONALD MAASS WRITING TIPS FOR WRITERS OF THE 21^st CENTURY NOVEL:

2 What does your category of novel excel at?  Embrace that…then outdo it. 

                  #21stCenturyTuesday

PARANORMAL

My genre excels at adding the jam in the doughnut: the unexpected, the sweet, and the challenge.

WHICH CATEGORY OF NOVEL ARE YOU WRITING, AND WHAT DOES THAT CATEGORY EXCEL AT?

PLOT - A to Z CHALLENGED

Each post for the A to Z Challenge is the challenge I set for myself.

P is for PLOT

Characters, conflict and
complications are present whenever
there's more than one
person in the novel.

P is for Plot because all you have to do is control the key elements of character, conflict, complications, climax and consolidation to write the perfect novel ;)

HAL LONGLEAT AND THE TROUBLE WITH TRUTH

Dizzy, Hal slid down the ladder. His nerveless fingers couldn’t grip. His feet slid from the rung as if it had been coated in grease like the Maypole on the feast day. 

He landed at the bottom of the steps. Digging in his heels, he pushed himself back through the straw and dust. Fear beat at him, a stinging pain, he thought he would be sick.

Could YOU have been gifted with the ability to identify and eliminate weak and brittle phrases from your work? To the uninitiated, these interlopers look like quality imagery.

CLICHÉ RAIDERS: REWRITE!

•           pale into insignificance

•           pecking order

•           plain as a pikestaff

•           point of no return

•           practice makes perfect

•           press on regardless

•           pride and joy

•           put two and two together

•           put your foot down

•           put your nose out of joint

FOR P, I CHOSE PLOT. WHAT IS THE SUBJECT OF YOUR P POST?

GOALS - A to Z CHALLENGED

G is for GOALS

Each post for the A to Z Challenge is the challenge I set for myself.

Sometimes people's goals
conflict ;)

For me, in writing, G is for Goals because it is the difference between theoretically writing and challenging yourself to produce sections or chapters that build up to the end.

HAL LONGLEAT AND THE TROUBLE WITH TRUTH

Hal licked at the rough and torn skin beside his nail. Then, he gripped his hands over the top of his hat. He edged away from the shadow and risked moving little further forward. He climbed on to the water trough and rested a hand on the stable wall for balance. He still wasn’t tall enough to see over the crowd. It wasn’t that he cared about the result. He had to know what was happening.

Could YOU have been gifted with the ability to identify and eliminate weak and brittle phrases from your work? To the uninitiated, these interlopers look like quality imagery.

CLICHÉ RAIDERS: REWRITE!

•           give a dog a bad name

•           give up the ghost

•           glutton for punishment

•           goes without saying, it

•           goes from strength to strength

•           grasp the nettle

•           greatest thing since sliced bread

•           great unwashed, the

•           green with envy

•           grim death, like

FOR G, I CHOSE GOALS WHAT IS THE SUBJECT OF YOUR G POST?