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Bring characters to life with specific details–Carrie Underwood style
Want to bring your characters to life, to make them live and breathe on the page? Use concrete, specific details. One of the most common issues I see when I critique other people’s writing (and when I look at my own early drafts) is too many generalities. Don’t tell me your character wore jeans and a t-shirt. Tell me he wore faded 501s, two sizes too small, and a Van Halen t-shirt with the sleeves ripped off. Or tell me he wore Wranglers with the outline of a Skoal can etched into the back pocket. (And I just told you I went to high school in a rural-ish town in…
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Desert View Watchtower, Grand Canyon National Park
If you’ve hung around on this blog for very long, you’ve probably figured out that I love photo challenges (see just about any of my photo posts for evidence). Well, I just found a new one, the Amazing Stonework challenge over on the For the Love of blog. Anita’s goal is, “to highlight the artwork created by builders of long ago.” I’m fascinated by old stone buildings, from millennium-old pueblos and cliff dwellings to the midcentury brick homes in my Tucson neighborhood, so I’m excited to participate in this challenge. I’m also excited to use this challenge as an opportunity to share photos from places that relate in some way…
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#SoCS: Rolling with life’s ups and downs
This post is part of the Stream of Consciousness Saturday blog hop. Linda Hill posts a prompt every Friday; today’s prompt is “up/down.” I’ve been thinking about life’s ups and downs a lot lately, maybe because the last couple of years have been up-and-downy for me, even more than normal. Of course there’s the Microbe that Must not be Named, but even setting that aside, I feel like my mood and energy as well as life events have fluctuated quite a lot. I’ve always prided myself on being resilient, on being able to roll with life’s punches, but lately I’ve been feeling life’s bumps a little more. It’s been an…
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#SoCS: In which your intrepid blogger whines about the Arizona heat
This post is part of the Stream of Consciousness Saturday blog hop. Linda Hill posts a prompt every Friday; this week’s prompt is, “hat/het/hit/hot/hut.” Me, about an hour ago: I haven’t participated in SoCS for awhile. I’m tired and sleep-deprived, and I really don’t feel like revising my novel, so I’ll hop over to Linda Hill’s blog and see what today’s prompt is. Maybe it’ll be something I can relate to. It includes the word, “hot.” There’s a massive heat wave in the Western U.S. And I live in Arizona. Yeah, I can relate. We’re on about day 6 of temperatures over 110. It was 113 yesterday here in Tucson,…
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PitMad and an Update from the Query Trenches (Otherwise Known as Rejection Report #1)
While working my way through the June posts in the IWSG Blog Hop, I found a wonderful post on Emma Louise Gill’s blog, in which she summarizes her querying experiences so far. I just started querying last month, and I found her post both encouraging and informative. Oh, and inspirational, in that it inspired me to post my own (much shorter and less eventful) query update here. I’ll try to make it a monthly tradition, so you can share my pain vicariously. I’m currently querying Vanishing, Inc., a time travel romance in which Alex Collins flees to a tiny town in the Arizona mountains to escape an abuser. There she…
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Prepping for #PitMad (#IWSG)
Thursday I’ll be pitching my time travel romance, Vanishing, Inc., in #PitMad. What, you ask, is PitMad? It’s a pitch party on Twitter, in which unagented authors like yours truly try to distill their magnum opuses into a 280-character tweet in the hope of attracting an agent’s attention. And I thought writing a query letter was hard. Fortunately, there’s lots of great advice out there for PitMad virgins like me. I’ll share the most useful tips I found, but first: This post is part of the Insecure Writers Support Group monthly blog hop. On the first Wednesday of each month, I and my fellow insecure writers post something related to…
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Bloom on an organ pipe cactus, Stenocereus thurberi (#FOTD)
Yes, I’m back with yet another cactus blossom for Cee’s Flower of the Day challenge. This one is on the organ pipe cactus in my front yard. Organ pipes are somewhat rare in Tucson. They’re native to an area southwest of here in the borderlands of Arizona (USA) and Sonora (Mexico). They even have their own national monument, named, fittingly enough, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. Tucson is supposed to be a little too cold for them, but apparently the one in my yard doesn’t read botanical texts or garden guides. It just grows happily in front of my house, making magnificent blooms like this one. Or this one: Learn…
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#FOTD: Dragonfruit blossoms
For Cee’s Flower of the Day photo challenge, my neighbor’s dragonfruit blossoms, taken during my morning walk yesterday. Dragonfruit plants are scraggly and ugly, but dang, their blooms are spectacular. Here’s a closeup of the center. My husband says it looks like it has an alien bursting out of it. He’s kind of right.
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They liked it? They really, actually liked it? (#IWSG)
If you’ve hung out on my blog much, you know that I participate in the monthly IWSG (Insecure Writers Support Group) blog hop. On the first Wednesday of each month, I and my fellow insecure writers post something related to writing, and other insecure writers visit and maybe even leave a comment. That tiny bit of validation helps sooth our insecurities. The helpful hosts of the IWSG even give us an optional question to respond to, just in case our insecurity is seasoned with writer’s block. This month’s question is: Have any of your readers ever responded to your writing in a way that you didn’t expect? If so, did…
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#FOTD: Blooming prickly pear
Yes, it’s another bloomin’ cactus (with a bonus bee!) for Cee’s Flower of the Day challenge. I snapped this pic on my morning walk in the neighborhood last week. Most prickly pears aren’t much to look at most of the year–and then they bloom, and I understand why almost every yard in Tucson has at least one.
Janet Alcorn
Suspense | Horror | Romance
