Posts about writing and publishing.
(image Garo4 via Dreamstime) G is for Ghosts. At last! We’ve arrived! My favorite letter for Blogging from A to Z because, well, you know, I adore ghosts. (Thank you, old subscribers, for sticking with me. I promise once we arrive at Z, I’ll give you a much-needed break. Pinkie swear.) But…I love ghosts. I love thinking about ghosts. I love writing about ghosts. I love reading about ghosts. I love to watch ghost stories on the big screen. On…
(image courtesy Pointillist via Creative Commons) F is for Fear. Fear. We all feel it. For this Blogging from A to Z post I was thinking lately about how fear relates to reading and writing. Many years ago during my MFA studies, I read an essay in which the author stated all great writers are motivated by the fear of death, and even those who say they aren’t, really are. While I haven’t tested this hypothesis, I think writers…
(Image Creative Commons via Photopin) E is for El Cheapo* This Blogging from A to Z post is for all those writers out there. For many years I had the good fortune to belong to a writing critique group led by the late Phyllis Taylor Pianka. Two Thursdays a month we would meet at Phyllis’s house to read our work and partake of delicious dessert. How I miss those nights! And how I miss Phyllis! At one of our…
D is for DogLit Welcome to day 3 of Blogging from A to Z and my theme the Three R’s: Reading, (W)riting, and Research! So, I’ve been noticing that the appearance of dogs in my writing has escalated. My first (unpublished) novel contains no dogs. My second, Moonlight Dancer, features a dog with a minor role. My current work in progress, Poseidon and Me, introduces a service dog with a major role. The novel after that, Please Take Me (still…
Day three of Blogging from A to Z and going strong! C is for Circle Dance. What’s that? you ask. The Circle Dance, or Ganggang sullae, is a 5,000 year old Korean harvest dance that women perform under the moonlight. They would dance under the brightest moon of the year in hopes of securing a good harvest. (image: public domain via wikicommons) This photo of a Circle Dance was taken in Jindo in 1890. I was so excited to find this…
Welcome to Day 2 of Blogging from A to Z! Pull up a chair for Blogging from A to Z in which I and other bloggers publish posts beginning with successive letters of the alphabet. Partly because I am a newbie to this A to Z blogging experience and partly because I’m a planner, I tried to map out all my letters ahead of time to minimize the craziness. Over a period of several weeks, most of the…
(image courtesy flikr creative commons via photopin) A is for Adoption Welcome to my first day of Blogging A to Z! I hope you enjoy my theme–The Three R’s: Reading, (W)riting, and Research! We’ll begin with the letter…I don’t know…A? I recently figured out (okay, I’m a slow learner) that many of the books I read, all of the books I am in the process of writing, and the one book I published, Moonlight Dancer, relate to adoption–human or canine–in…
(A Dame’s School courtesy of flickr via photopin) So, I’m going to do something new and radical this April. I’m going to participate in Blogging A to Z. That means I will join with a bunch of other bloggers and create a blog post every day in April with Sundays off for good (or bad) behavior. Twenty-six days, twenty-six letters. Check out the cool Blogging A to Z website here. Maybe you’d like to join in. Please do. Cruise…
Luck of the Irish $250 Cash Giveaway Luck of the Irish – $250 Cash Giveaway Are you Irish? I’m not. Doesn’t matter. I have it on good authority that on Saint Patrick’s Day everyone is a little bit Irish. So, whether you’re always Irish or just Irish today or this month, Happy Saint Patrick’s Day! An Amazing Group of Authors & Bloggers have joined with me to bring you a fabulous prize!! Need a little extra luck this year? Then read…
One Lovely Blog Award Over the years I have seen bloggers tagged or awarded, and I was always a teeny bit jealous. (Okay, you may delete the word teeny.) The character blog tag looks fun. In this one, a blogger tags you and you have to answer questions about your character. At any rate, tags and awards have flown around the blogosphere but never landed at Pen In Her Hand. Until now! I am happy to inform you that I…
Guest interview with Delia Greetings and good morning or good evening as the case may be! Today I’m honored that Delia over at Postcards from Asia has posted an interview with me. You can see it and learn all my secrets (well, maybe not all) here. I think it’s so fun to read author Q and A’s. Turns out, it’s just as much fun to answer thought-provoking inquiries. Delia did a great job of crafting questions I really had to think…
Satire in art: why do we care? Today I’m excited to be guest posting at Beryl Belsky’s The Writer’s Drawer. Join me here where I’m discussing the recent upheaval over the movie The Interview and the role of satire in books and movies and in our lives. Please join me there! What is your view of satire? Is it dangerous? Please leave a comment at The Writer’s Drawer and take a few minutes to navigate Beryl’s wonderful site. She is…
PlotWriMo: Revise Your Novel Blog Tour I am excited to host two inspiring women today, along with the fabulous program they have put together to help authors get their books published and to learn how to revise their own novels in a manner that will make manuscripts shine! I first met Martha Alderson at the 2004 East of Eden Writers Conference in Salinas, CA. From there, I participated in one of Martha’s plotting workshops where I learned her butcher paper plotline…