Aspiring Novelists

Hello All, First and foremost, I want to thank everyone who participated in last week’s word count challenge. It was a tough commitment to make, but the reward was worth the effort. Our winner, Deniz Bevan is proof of this. She came in with a whopping seven-thousand words for the week. Great job Deniz.  Enjoy the chocolates and the book. You earned em. Denise's dedication to the craft had a galvanizing affect on me.  After dedicating a  couple of months to developing my characters, I finally put the finishing touches on their bios.  As you all know, characters drive a story, so it's important to create individuals with poignant and unique personalities.  This can mean the difference between a character who has the charisma of a cardboard cutout, and one that is extraordinary and inspiring.  Since I hoped to achieve the latter, I decided the best way to draw inspiration for characters was to study the behavior of others.  I scrutinized family members I admired, and those I

Hello All, I hope you had a fruitful writing week.  Things are good here in my neck of the woods.  I finally quit procrastinating and met the daily writing goals I'd set for myself. Now, I am two chapters away from finishing the outline for my work-in-progress. If all goes according to plan, I will be ready begin the second draft of my novel by the end of next week. As I announced in a previous post, the word count challenge ended today. Whoever wrote the most words this week will receive a small box of Godiva chocolates, and a copy of Getting the Words Right, by Theodore A. Rees Cheney. I'll close the comments on Wednesday (to allow everyone enough time to get their word counts in), then I will send the prizes out to the winner. I look forward to reading about your productive sessions.

Hello All, It may have taken sixty years , but my novel is finally finished First and foremost, I want to thank KarenG at Coming Down the Mountain for hosting an awesome barbeque over the holiday weekend. I met a lot of interesting and creative people at that shindig. The power of the internet never ceases to amaze me.  Less than twenty five years ago my friendships were limited to the geographical area in which I lived.  Communication outside this vicinity occurred via snail mail and the telephone.  Now, here I am, forging friendships with people from around the world by computer link. This speaks to the power of imagination. Some creative genius out there came up with the idea of the internet, and as we all know, it eventually became a reality. The same results are also possible for authors.  J.K. Rowling imagined Harry Potter and now he is a household name. Stephanie Meyer dreamed up Edward Cullen and voila, he is a heart throb among teenage girls. Don't get me wrong,

Hello Everyone and Welcome, Sorry for the delay in posting this thread, but I was busy grilling some shish kabobs for Karen G’s Labor Day barbeque at Coming Down the Mountain . Everyone’s invited so be sure and drop in for some mouth watering eats, and a friendly chat with your fellow bloggers. Hopefully interacting with other writer’s will motivate me to get cracking on my novel. I’ve been quite lax in my authorial duties lately. Yesterday, I headed to inspiration station to catch the Writing train. However, I got lost along the way and wound up at Procrastination place. I must have turned left when I should have gone right, because I wound up in a chat jam, and there was no end in sight. As I lumbered through the writing threads, I realized my plight, I lacked motivation and my mind was wound too tight. So I took another right and stopped for the night to think up a way to turn on my light. Okay, Okay, I’ll refrain from imposing anymore metaphors on you. I’m sure you get it. I’v