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Time and the Writer: The Importance of a Metadata Story Sheet

Creating a Story Sheet is a great way to save time in a busy writing life. Learn how.

Every month I choose a Big Word to ponder. This month the word is TIME. If you have ever looked at a clock and realized you’ve run out of time, then you know how important it is to manage your writing time. The Metadata Story Sheet Metadata is a set of data that describes other data. There are many kind of metadata sheets that can be real timesavers. For example, a while back, I discussed…

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Overcoming Grief and Writer's Block: Mary Cope on Success as an Author

Today our featured author is Mary Cope. A fellow Rose she writes young adult romance. Today she shares her struggles and challenges, and gives some great advice for those intent on becoming an author. Welcome Mary Cope, Is there an event in your life that affected you as a writer? After ‘Beautiful One’ was published, one of my closest friends, my beta reader, passed away. Continuing to write…

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Taking Notes Using a Rocketbook

Handwritten notes still have a place in this digital age. In my book, Fast Draft Your Manuscript, I provide many reasons why keeping a small notebook beside your computer. can make the writing process faster. Here are a few: Use it when brainstorming a plot element or character action Draw a mind map or web Record something you don’t want to forget to include Play with possible wording or…

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Enrich Your Writing with Onomatopoeia

Has anyone ever told you to add more sound-based sensory language to your writing . . . AND then said, but don’t use the words hear or sound because they are overused? Well, it has happened to me, and here’s the solution I came up with. I discovered that many verbs not only describe a motion, but also indicate the associated sound. These verbs are called onomatopoeia. There are plenty of them to…

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The Bluenose

The Bluenose is the sailing ship depicted on the Canadian dime and on the Nova Scotia license plate. It is the most famous Canadian ship and was the fastest sailed vessel in the world, holding the record of 14.15 knots. It was designed to be both a fishing boat and a racing gaff-rigged schooner. Wikipedia has a very detailed description of the ship including all its dimensions. It was built of…

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Making Hypothermia Real

When writing a challenging character experience that I have not had directly, I always start with my personal experience, then I consult the facts, and last, I try to talk to someone who has experienced it. Being Cold I have never had hypothermia, thank heavens, but I have been very cold. I farmed for years in the North. We had four hundred sheep and thirty goats that needed care no matter the…

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Characters in Lost Beneath the Tide

Lost Beneath the Tide, book 2 in the Tide Harbor series is currently being edited. Here are some descriptions of the main characters in the story. Catarina (Cat) Silva – Feisty marine biologist Cat Silva arrives in Tide Harbor to study the pollution levels caused by fish farming. She is an instructor in the biology department at New York University, and lives with her mother in Far Rockaway,…

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How to Farm a Salmon

Book 2 in the Tide Harbor Suspense series, Lost Beneath the Tide, focuses on fish farming, also called aquaculture, in Nova Scotia. Currently the provinces aquaculture industry produces ninety million dollars in production and exports to eighty countries. Farming salmon involves several stages. First salmon eggs are fertilized and the fry allow to grow in fresh water for a year to a year and a…

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Teaching Online Writing Workshops

One thing that I do a lot is teach online workshops. I find it a wonderful way to interact with other writers spread far and wide around the world. I love sharing bits of knowledge I have picked up in my professional writing career with them. Recently, I have seen courses advertised that will teach you how to create an online course. I personally don’t believe a person needs to take a course to…

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Spice It Up with Rhetorical Devices

What are Rhetorical Devices? We all know the literary devices of metaphor and simile. Rhetorical devices are a little different. Instead of comparisons, rhetorical devices are used to add emphasis to one’s words. Most often used in oral speeches, some phrases and sentences are so powerful they go down in history as sayings everyone knows. For example, you have probably heard Julius Caesar’s…

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The Thesaurus: An Author's Best Friend

January 18 is National Thesaurus Day. So it seems a perfect moment to honor the most important writing tool an author can have: The Thesaurus. The thesaurus is a type of dictionary that focuses on synonyms for the words listed. Writers has been relying on thesauruses to find just the right word for a long time. The very first is believed to have been produced by 1st century writer, Philo of…

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Nova Scotia's Lobster Trap Christmas Trees

Lobsters play an important economic role in the coastal villages of Nova Scotia. Fifty thousand tons of lobster are harvested each year. While traditional lobster traps were made of bent wood and slats, contemporary lobster traps are rectangular-shaped metal cages that come in a variety of colors. Inside, netting funnels the lobster into the trap, but cleverly prevents the lobster from getting…

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Build-A-Blurb

Blurbs are those short, pithy book descriptions found on the back cover and on online book sites. Writing this is a challenge for many authors. Instead being free to develop the story over pages or writing, the author must shrink the gist of the story down to a few words. There are many ways to do this. Here is one way, but it not the only way. What a Blurb Needs A blurb can be written at any…

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Holly Smurthwaite Writes Romance

Holly Smurthwaite writes romantic suspense with a touch of paranormal. She is here to share her writing life and some fantastic marketing tips for fellow writers. Welcome Holly, How did you come up with the title? I had a line in my first book that went something like, “If Kiera ever wrote a memoir, which she would never do, she’d title it The Color of Trauma is Pink.” It’s a reference to the…

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Pen Names: The Good and the Bad

When I started writing fiction, I decided to do so under a pen name. At the time it made sense. I was teaching, and my first novels were sexy hot. This is one of the most common reason authors choose a pen name – not wanting to associate their everyday life with their writing. Other reasons for not using one’s given name include: A name that is already in use by another author or by a well-known…

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Jennifer Wilck Writes Jewish Romance

I am excited to have fellow New Jersey Romance Writer member Jennifer Wilck. She is here today to talk about her fantastic books and her writing life. Welcome, Jennifer… Is there an event in your life that affected you as a writer? I’ve been writing and reading for as long as I can remember, but I never saw characters like me—Jewish—in romance. One day, my husband and I were on a road trip.…

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Light of Love Anthology Giveaway

Coming September 19th. A Hearts Through History Anthology.

It’s time to be thinking about holiday romances, and there is a great new historical romance anthology releasing tomorrow September 19th, The Light of Love: A Hearts Through History Anthology. The theme of the anthology is the celebrations surrounding the solstice. We are fortunate today to have the authors sharing why they chose the historical period they did. (And we have a giveaway for you…