The beginning of a story sets the reader up with the personality of the characters, their motivations and perhaps, if the reader is lucky they are given a bit of action. Most of all, it provides the reader with an introduction of the world the writer has created. Based on that you might ask, 'Why, oh why, would you start a space adventure in an alley on Earth?" *shifting a bit in my seat* Okay, I admit it. I have a problem. You see I like alley ways. I'm not sure why, I just

Last year, I learned a lot about the writing process. I made some choices that didn't work out and made some crazy estimates. Then the year ended with some major life changes that required me to put my writing on hold. Now I'm back wiser (I hope) and energized. 2018 Goals As the title says this post is about my writing goals for 2018. Here they are: Destiny Taken: Publish Fall 2018. When I began 2017 I had no idea what it took for a new writer to publish a book. I naively

I've decided to participate in National Novel Writing Month. Rather than doing the suggested 50,000 word goal; I decided to double the goal and write 100,000 words. That was going to be daunting enough. I prepared my calendar and attempted to account for the month ahead. Then a couple of unforeseen occurrences piled up just before November 1st. I needed to attend a funeral in the first week of NaNoWriMo. Then, I got a new job. You say great, right? Yes, it is wonderful and I'

When I read posts on how to create character profiles or character sheets they seem to preface it by acknowledging how much people hate doing them. Well, I guess I'm strange because I love them! Character sheets, oh how I love you. Let me count the ways: Video Games: It's like building the perfect character in Sims. I played the video game Sims for years and I used to love creating every aspect of the character even mentally coming up with a backstory for the character as

It's October and that means time to prepare for NaNoWriMo. NaNoWriMo is stands for Nationan Novel Writing Month. Every November people around the globe attempt to draft a novel in 30 days. The fine people who run NaNoWriMo have suggest that 50,000 should be the goal for the month. Last year, I participated and met that goal!! I was so proud of myself. I had written 50,000 words in one month. At the time, it was more words than I had written for any story idea! The only issue