Seeing Green

Seeing Green

See this blog article on my publisher's website!
http://4rvreading-writingnewsletter.blogspot.com

With St. Patrick’s Day around the corner, are you seeing Irish green? How about spring green, avocado or jade? Kelly, chartreuse or lime? Acid, celery or pond? How many substitutes for the word “green” can you make? I've got a list of 72!

Readers like to second-guess what’s coming next. The best writers throw surprises,don't they? It is the secret to what keeps us turning pages. It is our job to learn how they accomplish this feat. The best way I’ve found is to push past the first, second and third idea that comes to mind. Instead of using the word "green" for example, is there another word that fit the setting more precisely? One that will more completely capture the tone of your scene? Pond green might convey a stillness, or gloominess, to a "green" scene, whereas jade implies mystery. Lime adds zest!

If a description, action, characteristic, or mystery-solving plot point shows up high on your mental list, chances are good it will occur to your readers in a heartbeat, too. As a writer, we don't want to be predictable. Push to see what creative idea lurks brilliantly further down your list. While I agree with writing "How-to" books that discourage using adjectives and adverbs, writers can evoke memorable descriptions with an occasional powerful choice, as in "After raining all day, the summer-sweet lawn beckoned to the golfer who jumped from his armchair without further argument."

Beyond the Thesaurus

Scour bookstores for unique "wordy" reference books. Beyond the common thesaurus, there are many books crammed-full with words and ideas perfect for expanding our creative diction. A book of police terms sets the scene for crime writers, while a cookbook of old country recipes offers authentic language to write a story set in a one-room cabin.

While munching Irish soda bread or hot cross buns this weekend, challenge yourself to create banquet-worthy words for your next language feast!

The Writing Journey

The writing journey continues to have bumps, gaps in the road ahead, mucky places I'm getting stuck, and a few mountaintop joys. My sister has been offered a contract by OakTara to publish not one but both her Sophie book and its sequel! An SCBWI friend has also landed an agent this winter and got a picture book contract from 4RV. It is fabulous to see that the system works for good writers. Now...to speed up my pace to join their company is the job of the months ahead!

Smories contest is on!

I want S'more! That's a common phrase heard around campfires in the summer months. Now, kids can ask for more stories on www.smories.com website.

My story is filmed in a short video at the link below. It is titled "A Secret in My Ball of String" and will be online for the month of June. The story with the most views by the end of the month earns cash!

The little girl reading the story is priceless in her expression and British accent. Just adorable! She breathes life into the story.

http://www.smories.com/watch/the_secret_in_my_ball_of_string/

Smories.com

If you had a magic kite that could fly you anywhere, where would it take you? My story, The Secret in My Ball of String, takes the reader on a magical journey and will be posted online at Smories.com beginning June first!

This UK-based website is sponsoring a contest for writers to submit work each month, and selected stories will be read by a child on video and voted on by visitors to the site. (Rights for the stories remain with the authors except for their right to put it on their site.) Cash prizes for the top five popular stories.

Still trying to figure out what the catch is. . . but at least it will get some work out there!

Spring Cleaning

Cleaning up house, manuscripts and blog, giving everything a fresh start.

Contest update: The "Why I Write" essay made it through the contest with a nice rating and a spot in the Smashwords e-book, whenever that decides to be made available on-line. No sign of it yet.

But moving on with the MG novel... After the Bloom mystery novel contest, a couple agents have "waffled" on it and a few others said they didn't "connect". So, the winter months have been spent back on the sunny Greek island of Delos (mentally, anyway) with my main characters. Major re-write of the beginning so hopefully more agents and editors will "waffle" in my favor with the next round of submissions.

Looking forward to the spring SCBWI contest next month!

Contest updates

Contests are an excellent way to keep new writers on a rollercoaster ride of emotion -- Breath-holding excitement when they reach the highest peak before the gravity of reality sends you shooting back to earth in free-fall. At least I have writing friends to share the ride!

The deadline for "Why I Write" essays was delayed due to their system crashing over Christmas. Now due by the end of Jan. My essay hit the 100 reads mark today! Hoping it gets in the Smashwords anthology.

New Years Resolutions: Email/check out blogs LESS, Exercise MORE, and WRITE FASTER!

Essay Contest

Found a contest calling for essays on "Why I Write". Nice opportunity to get published in an anthology. Visit the site http://editorunleashed.com/forum to see all the essays! Mine is titled "What Would You Do? Makes me out to be a lunatic with characters pow-wowing inside my head, but that pretty much describes fiction writers -if they have to cart one of us off to the loony bin, they'll have to take all of us.