February 4, 2016
February 3, 2016
Writing Prompt Wednesday – Gender
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All his life, Stephen Paris had been given everything. Fortunately, he liked school and good grades came easy to him. His father Frederick knew he had spoiled his only son. It was the only way he could get a reaction out of him. “Thanks dad!” An excited boy would grab the toy and go play with it. Stephen was graduating from college next week. His dad had a job lined up for him, but not what he was expecting. Stephen wouldn’t need the new suit or brief case he had purchased.
January 27, 2016
Writing Prompt Wednesday – Use Emotion
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Rachel curled up in the overstuffed chair. Her sunken shoulders and empty stomach rolled together. It had been a month. She thought the tears would have stopped. But they didn’t. Rosemary, Rachel’s mom, was hopeful that her appetite would return. It had not and she continued to lose weight. Every other day she came over to Rachel’s studio apartment to push, pull or tug her into the shower. The first few days Rachel stood naked in the shower and whaled. No doubt she was trying to get all the hurt out quickly. In reality, it would take months if not years. In the meantime, Rachel needed to figure out how to function.
January 21, 2016
Think About It Thursday
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January 20, 2016
Writing Prompt Wednesday – Use Color
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The crystal blue sky had won over the evil black clouds of the morning thunderstorm. Sun burst through to reveal the devastation left behind. Mark rubbed the back of his neck and shook his head. The stress magnified in the lines on his forehead. The climb out of the basement revealed his home, a mass of wood, bricks and remnants of his belongings.
January 8, 2016
It’s Time
Posted by K H Richardson under writing | Tags: #amwriting, goals, novel, writer |Leave a Comment
We are a week into the new year. It’s time to have your goals written. Over the last several weeks, I’ve pondered this. I really want to achieve a higher percentage of my goals this year. So, I will have fewer of them and more meaningful. As writers, we are all about goals. Word count, time spent, pages complete, deadlines. Here it is, my 2016 writing goal is to finish my book. That’s it. Just get it done. I’m close, very close and just need to commit to doing what it takes, the right word count, the right amount of time writing, the right formatting on the pages. I’m going to complete the manuscript and have it ready for a good editor before the year is up.
The goal is written and I’m sharing it with you so that you are now part of my accountability.
What will be fun in the journey to accomplish this will be to see what other work comes out of it. No doubt that as more writing is done and the completion of a project, I’m guessing another story will creep up and more characters will asked to be written.
What do you think? Are your goals written?
Karen
December 28, 2015
Words from Will
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December 13, 2015
As you may remember, I spent a good part of November writing and trying to finish my novel. I made good progress, it’s better than it was before and it’s well on it’s way to being complete in this decade. One of the things I’ve learned to do before I sit down for a stretch of novel writing is to write something else. Usually it’s a blog post, or the start of one. Other times it’s some journaling. The exercise of putting words on a page is like the warm up to taking words and making sentences. Sentences make paragraphs. Paragraphs make a story.
Go ahead and stretch those writing muscles. Don’t forget to warm up, you wouldn’t want to pull a muscle, could cause writer’s block.
December 3, 2015
What Will You Name Her?
Posted by K H Richardson under writing | Tags: #amwriting, Coke, money |Leave a Comment
Here’s a story starter for you. This morning I stopped at a local convenience store for a fountain soda pop. I stood in line to pay. When called to the register the short woman behind the counter, who wasn’t aging well, said “That will be ninety-nine cents.” She was short and stout, might have been missing a tooth or two. Maybe she forgot to put them in this morning.
I told her I was going to give her change. What she said next gave me a chuckle all day. “I’m not in the mood to argue with you, so that will do.”
While I’m glad she didn’t want to argue with me, it seemed a rather odd thing to say to a customer.
This woman will make a great character somewhere. Please use her if you like, but leave me the line please. What is her name? Why did she say something so odd? Did she think I was someone else?
Your thoughts please.
November 7, 2015
Characters Come Knock on My Door
Posted by K H Richardson under writing | Tags: #amwriting, characters, writers |Leave a Comment
I was working at home a couple of days ago when the doorbell rang. The dog went nuts, which doesn’t bother me at all. I’m glad whoever is at my door in the middle of the day knows we have a noise maker. Anyway, I answered and stepped outside to be fortunate enough to meet our new neighbor.
He was a gentleman in his mid-sixties open collared shirt with a hint of a gold chain peeking. He introduced himself, first name only and told me the name of his wife. I welcomed him to the neighborhood.
Our conversation went on for maybe five minutes. In that few minutes of him doing most of the talking, I learned more about him than I know about friends in my Sunday school class that I’ve hung out with for five years.
He’s a widower who recently remarried a widow that he met at church. He’s semi-retired and his new wife teaches nursing. He has a 35-year-old son who is married and who he gave his house to in order to start a new home with his new wife. Need I go on?
Later as I was deep in my NANO writing for the day it occurred to me that the man had delivered not only our mistaken mail from his mailbox, but a great character sketch. He gave me a visual and a framework for a character who will no doubt end up in a story somewhere.
As writers we need to be respectful of our friends and family when it comes to using their mannerisms or personalities. But strangers are free fodder as far as I’m concerned. Begin to think about all the encounters you have in a day, need a man on the street or a lady in the grocery? Go find one. They are in plentiful supply.
Karen H. Richardson, PMP 