Christmas has always been a miraculous time for me. It still is. When I was younger, it was because of the presents, and the anticipation that came with the season. My parents were not wealthy, but we had the necessities and a few of the luxuries. My mom was a great manager. She could make the smallest thing seem of the greatest value. She could transform our house into a marvelous Christmas haven with her decorations, wonderful cooking and a few well-wrapped packages. When I became an adult, the torch …

When we write a short story or a novel, that work is a “journey” from beginning to end in many ways. 
 
Hopefully, our main characters will learn something about themselves and grow emotionally and in their personal values of not only each other, but the world around them.  They must become more aware of their place in the world as individuals to be able to give of themselves to another person, the hero to the heroine, and visa versa.
 
The main conflict of the story brings this about in a myriad …

What is the most romantic room in a home?  In our romance stories, it’s quite often the bedroom where the romance actually physically happens.  Other rooms in our characters’ homes are romantic and meaningful to the hero and heroine for various reasons as well.
The room I think of as most romantic is one that doesn’t exist yet:  the room addition.
How can adding on a room be romantic?  Okay, first of all, let’s remember this IS make- believe! In real life, home construction or remodeling projects will cause the topic of …

For some reason, choosing the name of the heroine of a story is hard for me—much harder than naming the hero.  I’m wondering if it’s because, as women, we give more thought to what we find attractive in a man (naturally!)   Even if he’s “Hunk of the Week,” if his name doesn’t appeal to us, it’s hard to think of him romantically. 
We are seeing our heroines from a different perspective.  They are…us.  So, naming them might not be as important in our minds, since secretly, we are them.  (No, we …

I am a collector of names. Have been, ever since I was a kid. Probably because I always wished for a different one, myself. Mine wasn’t really exotic, but it was…different. Cheryl. My parents decided on the pronunciation of “Chair-yl” rather than the more common way of saying it. The way a million other people sad it…with a “SH” sound, “Sheryl,” rather than the hard “CH” sound.
So when I began writing, I knew my characters had to have ‘good’ names—names that fit. Names that weren’t too strange, but not too …

BLOG—BUILDING YOUR BLOCKBUSTER NOVEL PART I— WHAT TO WRITE ABOUT AND GETTING ORGANIZED TO DO IT
We’ve talked about how to get an idea.  Simple enough, you say—but not always.  Writing is a process—we’ve all heard that before, but let’s think about what the “process” actually is. 
First of all, we have to come up with the idea that we want to write about.  For many of us, the stories start with just one idea, one scene that we’ve thought of, or even dreamed of—the germ of the story that we …

Have you ever tried to write a dream sequence or a flashback in your novels?  What did you think of it when you were finished?  Were you happy with the end result, or did it leave you feeling a little flat when you read back over it?
The school of thought on dreams and flashbacks is divided.  Some believe that the use of these devices exhibit the writer's immature efforts at crafting backstory and plugging it in, resulting in an amateurish debut into the literary world.
If not done well, this could …

Location.  Setting.  Why is it so important to our story?  It seems obvious in some cases.  In others, there could be a 'hidden' agenda. It can actually become another character.
Let's take a look, first, at the importance of setting to our genre, or sub-genre.
Fifty years ago, the choices were limited.  Regencies and Westerns were prevalent sub-gengres in the historical categrory, and mysteries and detective stories captivated the 'contemporary' nook.  Science fiction was still relatively uncharted.
The setting of a novel was a definitive device, separating the genres as clearly as any …

Last month, we talked about where our writing ideas come from:  Dreams,historical events, poetry or movies, or even from our own life experiences, to name a few.  We looked at how our characters can bedrawn from people we've known in our lives, whether we admire or despise them.
Characters, we said, can also come from unusual places–such as songlyrics, and can be based upon historical figures of the past.  Characters can be born in our own imaginations completely–not based upon any actual person we ever knew or studied in …

Have you ever been asked, "Where do you get your ideas?"  Ever thought about that question?
Where do your ideas for writing fiction come from, and what makes them worthy of the time, effort, and creative energy we expend to bring that idea to full fruition–to craft a well-written story from it?
One source of story ideas is from real-life experience.  Whether we are retelling a chapter of our own life, or something that happened to someone else, we must have come to the conclusion that that idea was worthwhile and that …