This Thanksgiving I didn’t cook a ham because I was already cooking a turkey and just three of us would be there to eat it. But my husband bought a ham anyway, because he loves ham and there it was in the fridge after I’d finished packaging the turkey leftovers for the freezer. And it Read More…
Month: November 2020
Fast Tips for Tightening Your Writing
Whether it’s a letter, essay, short story, or longer pieces, here are some easy ways to make it tighter, snappier, and (if you’re up against a word limit) shorter. Go active: change passive voice (“He was hit by a truck”) to active voice (“A truck hit him.”) Watch for sneaky forms of passive by scanning Read More…
First Draft in Revision (Writer Stuff)
Revising a first draft gives the writer a chance to re-think and re-vision the project. Almost everything is up for grabs–grabs to keep, and grabs to toss in the garbage. If the book in question is part of a larger work, and if it is under contract to a particular publisher and editor, some things Read More…
Rags & Tigger & Elizabeth: Rags Reaches His Limit
Under today’s clear blue sky after storms in the night, I cleaned Rags up from his rolls in the mud, and (having made pies in the morning and put the pumpkin pie out of the oven to cool) I got on him and started out with the intent to ride him up the slope to Read More…
Do Writers Need a Degree? (Did They Ever?) (Does Anybody?)
In the pedantic fashion of those with degrees, I will start off with qualifications of the topic…it depends…on what the writer’s writing, what the writer intends to do with what the writer is writing, what outside sources the writer might need to explore to cover the chosen subject…and which degree we’re talking about. The value Read More…
SQUIRREL!!
There’s a charming blogsite called Scientist Sees Squirrel where Steven Heard writes about his research, others’ research, writing for science, history of science (his new book is Charles Darwin’s Barnacle and David Bowie’s Spider) that I used to read a lot until NewBook dragged me deep into Ky Vatta, the family, and Slotter Key, the Read More…
A Good/Bad/Odd/Sad/Happy Medley
I didn’t feel great yesterday evening, so skipped the choir Zoom meeting and went to bed. And this morning….a migraine. Overnight clouds had moved in and a wind from the south. After a couple of hours trying to argue myself into wellness (waste of time and I know it, but often can’t act on it Read More…
Rags & Tigger & Elizabeth Tales
Today I rode Rags again, since his hooves are now trimmed and in good shape. Rags was not thrilled by the honor (!) and Tigger thought he should supervise the whole thing and had to be gently chased away from time to time. Here’s Tigger’s expression while I’m haltering Rags. Rags has the posture I’d Read More…
Revision: Firing Up the Chainsaw
Like everything else in writing, there are many ways to approach revision, and I’ve written quite a bit about the process elsewhere. But every writer and every project has unique challenges. For NewBook, I’m choosing a slower (since I have no deadline) but thorough and reliable method to cope with its nature and history. I Read More…
NewBook Has an End
About 1:20 pm today, NewBook attempted the “trickling away” ending (which usually means the real ending is some pages back) and sure enough, the real ending was some pages back. It’s found its end. Now comes the chainsaw of correction, the gorilla glue of mending and patching, the jewelers’ rouge for polishing, and weeks more Read More…