Writing
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What I’m Thankful for in my 2025 Writing Life
Even though I’m Canadian and our Thanksgiving is in October, as a nod to my American writer friends on their Thanksgiving happening today, here’s what I’m thankful for in my writing life: BOOKS As both an avid reader and a writer, my world is populated with an abundance of books. Fiction in multiple genres, writing
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Adjusting to a Winter Writing Routine
I’m lucky to be able to live in a place that offers four distinct seasons. Spring usually doesn’t start until late in April and continues until late in June. True summer weather lasts through July and August, although nights can get chilly near the end of the month. Our fall is often short, but September
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No NaNoWriMo – now what?
Until this year, writers have always associated November with NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), a global writing event where authors joined and attempted to write 50,000 words in 30 days (or 1667 words/day). For many, this meant finishing a rough draft of a novel, or at least a good portion of one. For others, it
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Prompts for Writing a Spooky Story
For many, October is often known as “spooky month”, despite the fact that really, it only has one day associated with all things spooky: October 31st. But Halloween month or not, this list of prompts is for any writers who are looking to pen a spooky story this fall. SPOOKY SETTINGS A figure in the
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Exciting News to Share: I have a book coming out in 2027
For those of you who have been following my weekly blog posts, a while back I mentioned that I started querying my psychological thriller, They’re Watching, and my domestic suspense novel, Amorous Obsession. I’ve sent out approximately fifty queries for each of them, had some requests for partials and fulls, and even got some coveted
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Literary Elements Part 5: Conflict
In this final part of my blog series on literary elements I address when writing a novel, I will focus on conflict. Every story needs conflict or else there really isn’t anything to drive the story. As in our lives, our characters must face both internal and external conflicts. Internal Conflict: a struggle within yourself.
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Literary Elements Part 4: Plot
What is Plot? For many, plot means story. But plot alone is a series of connected events within the story that not only reveals what’s happening, but how one thing leads to another. Your book’s plot will have a beginning, a middle and an ending. There are so many different ways to construct your book’s
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Literary Elements Part 3: POV
POV stands for point of view and it refers to the narrator you want to tell your story. Some authors favor a certain POV and use it throughout all their books, while others switch POVs depending on the type of story they’re telling. There are 3 main types of POVs, although a new, 4th one
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Literary Elements Part 2: SETTING
In this second blog post in my 5 part series on literary elements, I’m going to talk about how I work with my novel’s setting. Examples could be:*19th century England in an expansive castle*autumn in a small town in Vermont*present day touring the Amazon rainforest and a storm comes up*23rd century on Mars What type
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Literary Elements
Writing a novel isn’t easy. Once you’ve been gifted with an idea that excites you, and you’ve decided what type of story you want to tell, it’s time to get down to what essential elements you need in order to tell your story. Although some sources cite as many as ten literary elements necessary to