~How to Extend the Story~ When I started writing my first romantic suspense Beneath the Skin, I had no plans to make it into a series. But it didn’t take long for me to start imagining the lives of the secondary characters and wondering if they could win true love too. So when I pitched … More Writing a Series – 6 Tips for Success
~Have You Covered All the Bases?~ Do you know how to legally quote from another writer in your own commercial works? In scholarly works, it is usually acceptable to quote from someone as long as you footnote and include a bibliography. That just doesn’t work in commercial fiction and non-fiction. When I was writing my … More Don’t Get Sued – How to Get Permission to Quote from Literary Works
~GOING BEYOND 5 SENSES ~ Remember those two hard-to-spell senses I mentioned back when I started this series? Well, now it is time to talk about them. The vestibular sense provides feedback on our body’s balance, coordination, and movement in space. The kinesthetic or proprioception sense lets us know how our bones, muscles, and tendons … More Editing for Sensory Language Part 7 Movement
~Do You Hear What I Hear? ~ Crash. Bang. Screech. Nothing can beat adding sound words into one’s writing. Our sense of hearing develops long before we are born. At 18 weeks, an unborn infant can start to hear sounds. By 25 to 26 weeks, the fetus responds to sounds. By birth, infants can identify … More Editing for Sensory Language Part 6 Sound
~ Take a Good Look ~ When we read, we create visual images in our heads. We picture the heroine’s dress. We see the house. We visualize the car speeding past. These visual images grow out of our own visual memory of things our eyes have seen. In describing objects using the visual sense, it … More Editing for Sensory Language Part 5: Vision
~ The Way It Feels ~ Close your eyes. Reach out and touch something nearby. Concentrate on how it feels to your fingertips. When we touch something a giant network of nerves are activated sending information to our brains. If we have touched something similar before, our brain may make a guess as to what … More Editing for Sensory Language Part 4 Touch
~ The Gustatory Sense: On the Tip of Our Tongue ~ Stick out your tongue and take a taste. Yum! Our sense of taste is probably our most pleasurable sense. It is also one of the most complex. We have almost 2000 taste sensors on our tongue, but what we actually taste is a combination … More Editing for Sensory Language Part 3 Taste
~ The Olfactory Sense: Using Our Nose ~ Smell is one of the most powerful of our senses. Smell forms and solidifies memories and evokes the emotions. A familiar odor can bring back an image or event from the past. Smells influence the choices we make and can change our mood and our behavior. Real estate … More Editing for Sensory Language Part 2 SMELL
– Weaving in the Seven Senses – As you can tell from the title I am still editing. I have gone over my current manuscript for all the big things. Now it is time for me to add those little details that raise ordinary writing to the level that touches the reader emotionally. This is especially important in … More Editing for Sensory Language
Editing Tribulations and Tricks For the last several months, I have been stuck in editing mode. It’s not that I dislike editing. I just like creating new stories better. Editing becomes a tribulation when all you do is edit from morning to night. That’s what happens when you fast draft three books in a row … More Marathon Editing
Or Why Hitching Creativity to the Clock is Doomed to Failure Yikes! Where did the time go? My last post was when – December? So much for keeping a writing journal. It was such a good idea – writing down what was going on in my writing. So what happened? Well, now that I am … More Time Management versus Creativity in Writing
50,000 Words and Counting! I did it! For the third year in a row I managed to get down 50,000 words on my next novel, despite the holidays, a long-awaited visit from my sister who lives in Scotland, a book signing in Long Island, and all the daily things I do – like work. However, … More Word Trackers. A Good Thing or Not?
I love to read. In fact, I don’t just love it– I am compelled to read. I read everything. If there is a newspaper in the recycle bin, I read it. If there is a cereal box on the table, I read the label. If there is a book left anywhere, I pick it up … More I love to read: Why reading during NaNoWri is a bad Idea
My first novel, written as a respite from working on my dissertation, took me five years to write. My second novel took seven years to write. My third novel took one month. What made the difference? Fast drafting. Fast drafting is the writing process in which you throw out everything you’ve learned about good writing … More Fast Drafting My Way to The End or What I Learned from NaNoWri
Ready. Set. Go. Got my plot. Got my characters. Got my GMC outline. Got my alarm set. Everything appears ready for me to dive in and write my first 2000 words (Technically you need to write 1533 a day, but I aim for 2000 words a day – that way I get ahead a bit … More NaNoWri starts Tomorrow and I Can’t Wait.
NaNoWri or National Novel Writing Month starts on Tuesday. This will be my third year participating. I don’t know why, but somehow tracking words and trying to attain the 50,000 word challenge in 30 days just gets my blood flowing and the creative juices oozing. So I am getting set for the race to the … More Why NaNoWri fires me up to write faster
I have always loved words. Words are amazing things. They can make us feel happy. They can cut us to the quick. Loving words as much as I do, it comes as no surprise that I am a reader and a writer. When I was a teenager I collected favorite words and phrases on index … More Zara’s Words for Readers & Writers
Dear Readers, I have been busy. In June, my first romantic suspense Beneath the Skin was published by Wild Rose Press. I have just signed the contract for Close to the Skin, Book 2 in the Skin Quartet series. I have discovered that it is not the writing that is time consuming. I love writing. … More Forgive My Long Silence…
Where do you like to read? I’m a compulsive reader so I enjoy reading anywhere. I have been known to read while stirring the stew and in the few seconds it takes to microwave my tea. One of the reasons I like to read paperback books as opposed to e-books is that it is actually … More Favorite Places to Read
I’m having a Facebook Party for Beneath the Skin! Today is my big day. Beneath the Skin will be released to the world! In celebration, I am holding my first ever Facebook Party. In preparation, I have done a ton of research. Below is what I learned goes into having a successful party. Steps to a Successful Facebook … More Have a Successful Facebook Party
