When I created Shira, the heroine who narrated my novel, The Fruit of Her Hands, I found myself wrestling with a fairly common problem for storytellers – how to make scenes that my narrator could not witness as vivid and dramatic as if she’d been…
TWC instructor and Young Adult novelist, Jennifer Walkup, shares some honest and instructive thoughts on the struggle of a first draft and the value of non-writing: After a good writing weekend – in which I got very little official writing done, I can say I’m…
I’ve been kind of quiet lately on the blog that I began, but there’s a reason. With everything growing on steroids here at TWC, I’ve been stealing what little free time I have to DO MY OWN WRITING! Yes, I have not given up and…
A conversation with Judith Lindbergh and Michelle Cameron In anticipation of our upcoming workshop, “Reading Your Writing for an Audience”, Michelle and I thought we should discuss why we thought such a program was really relevant to writers. Below is the result of an interesting…
Kathy Lynn Harris and I go way back – all the way to the first writing conference I ever attended, in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, some 15 odd years ago. The conference, in addition to solidifying my ambitions to become a published author, also gave me…
OK, here I go again with the writer’s perfect gift. It is, this year, every year, forever and always, simply time. I wrote about it a couple of years ago, and I still cannot stress enough how absolutely true it is. But last time I…
More on Revision from TWC’s Associate Director, Michelle Cameron. If you missed Part 1, check it out here. Once you are satisfied that the structure, character development, story arc and descriptions stand up to scrutiny, it’s time for… STEP #3 – SEE THE TREES (and…
There’s nothing like the excitement of starting a new work or the infatuation you might have with having written it. But professional writers are really made by the serious way they approach the revision process. It’s important to take time with your revisions and not…
We’re very excited to welcome author and literary agent Paula Balzer to The Writers Circle. Here she shares some wise words about writing memoir. Be sure to check out her upcoming workshop, “Writing & Selling Your Memoir” on Wednesday evenings starting December 1 at our…
Tips on starting with a bang, from TWC Associate Director Michelle Cameron: Picture this scene: A man lands at an airport. The plane taxis on the ground for nearly fifteen minutes, while all around him, people are talking on their cell phones, hoping to be…
We’ve all heard it before. “Your character’s flat. You need to make him three-dimensional.” Sure, great. But what exactly does that mean? We all know we live in a three dimensional world. We learn it in grade school: a line, a plane, a cube… But…
As an addendum to my last post, I just heard from Words Bookstore in Maplewood that Pitchapalooza is coming on October 27. You can get all the details at Pitchapalooza’s site, but here’s a brief intro to what they do. I hear from friends that…
