Aspiring Novelists

It's been a while since my last post.  Despite my best intentions to keep up with the blog, sometimes life gets in the way.  Seriously, it has been a whirl wind summer.  I had zero time to work on my manuscript in June.  Then, I hoped against hope that I could catch up in July.  Unfortunately, no such luck.  West Virginia was hit hard by storms and our home lost electricity for ten days.  Just as that crisis ended, my husband informed me  he had to miss three days of  our week long family vacation, due to troubles at work.  Come to find out, his company declared Chapter Eleven Bankruptcy to restructure. He remained behind to inform the employees that their jobs were secure.  Although it could have turned out much worse, and I'm thankful we all still have incomes, it was a stressful time. Now, that my life has finally settled down again, I have committed to writing at least five hundred words a day until my book is completed. ...

Hello Everyone, It's time for another Insecure Writer's Group post.   A few weeks ago I submitted a  chapter from my work-in-progress to one of my writer's groups for review.  During the critique, I received some mixed responses.  While some enjoyed the piece, others were disturbed by it.   The conflict over my chapter got me to thinking about just how dangerous words can be.  Some have argued that they are a tool used  to persuade a reader into seeing the world from the writer's point of view. Although in theory this is true, the danger does not lie in the meaning of the words, but in how they are interpreted.  In the case of my chapter, each reader honed in on certain elements of the story.  In fact, a couple fixated on one of the smaller scenes, and in doing so, failed to see the big picture.  Since the majority ruled that my piece was well written and easy to read, I did not understand the reason a coupl...