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Jul 23

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Carol Despeaux wins first place in Pacific Northwest Writer’s Association literary contest

OneWildWord writer Carol Despeaux was awarded first place Saturday in the memoir/nonfiction category at the 2012 Pacific Northwest Writer’s Association literary contest award ceremony.

About 550 writers attended the 2012 Pacific Northwest Writer’s Association conference held July 19 to 22 in Seattle.

Despeaux entered an excerpt from her memoir, “Runner Between Worlds.”

Judges received nearly 1000 entries in 12 categories.

Here is the full list of winners: Read more

Jul 20

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Three books for your writing bookshelf

At the Pacific Northwest Writer’s Conference in Seattle this weekend, I attended author Robert Dugoni’s Novel Writing Seminar. During the course of his talk, he mentioned several books on writing that have a prominent place on his bookshelf and that he looks at repeatedly, including:

Sol Stein’s Stein On Writing

Lawrence Block’s Writing the Novel: From Plot to Print

Stephen King’s On Writing

Dugoni said that if you’re concerned that your character is too boring, you may be playing it safe. Many writers fear their readers will think they’re writing about themselves, that the author is really the protagonist in disguise. You have to let that fear go.

Stephen King once said that you can’t write honestly if you have someone on your shoulder watching you. Good advice from the master.

Jul 19

Tap into your imagination with this one technique

“Vision is the art of seeing things invisible”— Jonathan Swift, author

In the movie, “The Magic of Belle Isle,” a single mother and her three children befriend their neighbor, a curmudgeonly wheelchair-bound writer, Monte Wildhorn.

When one of the daughters, 9-year-old Finnegan O’Neil, finds out Wildhorn (played by Morgan Freeman) is a writer, she hires him to give her lessons in finding her imagination. Read more

Jul 18

Using difficult emotions to make your story stronger

Seven months into the year, and I realize I’ve been through so much: the passing of my mother, our two-week remodel that turned into nine-weeks, a mini-family reunion, and both expected and unexpected travel. I’ve had many different stressors and felt a gamut of emotions: sadness, grief, fear, love, joy, fatigue (well, maybe that last one isn’t exactly an emotion, but it should be!)

As I work on my next book—imagining my story and going deeper into my characters—I realize that my seven months have been a blessing, in more ways than one. Read more

Jul 17

Free books + a donation = a better world

A Massachusetts publishing company has come up with a unique distribution model: It gives its books away.

Appropriately named Concord Free Press, it simply asks recipients of the books to make a donation to a person in need or a favorite charity. They’re asked to post their donation on the press’s website and later donate the book to someone else who will be part of the ongoing experiment in generosity.

So far, the donated books have inspired more than $300,000 dollars in donations. Some recent examples: Read more

Jul 16

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Write your book while dreaming

As a young girl, I was a big daydreamer. While my teachers tried to fill my blank mind with science or math or proper grammar, my head was crowded with imaginary friends, chestnut horses, and rainbow unicorns. Make-believe scenes reeled through my mind on a daily basis.

In forty-some years, not much has changed.

Now, however, I use my dreaming mind as a tool to find story ideas, develop character and plot, or find the perfect word for a poem. Read more

Jul 13

What are your writer’s superstitions and rituals?

Since today is Friday the 13th, I’ve been thinking about superstitions in general and writing in particular. The writers below share their insights about writers’ superstitions and rituals.

In this post at the Nouveau Writer, Mariana Ashley reveals The Top Five Writing Superstitions of the Greats.

Cat Woods (@catewoods) conducted an unofficial poll of 45 writers and found that 37 of them had writing quirks or superstitions. She lists some of them in this post at From the Write Angle.

At the Indextrious Reader blog, you’ll find a post by Canadian blogger Melwyk that includes a poem about superstitions and a cat.

What are your writing superstitions?

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