Get to Know Your Characters (Second Date+)

Read Time: 2 minutes We're still talking about character development 🙂 . Last time I wrote that it is beneficial to "ask" your characters typical questions that you might ask on a first date. Things like favorite hobbies or where their name comes from. Obviously, there are deeper questions to be asked in any relationship …

Go on a First Date with Your Characters

I heard recently that as you outline and write your novel you get to know your characters so much that you know, for certain, how they would react in any given circumstance. And that's when I realized that I didn't know my characters well enough! And so I decided to take each of them on …

Star Wars Day: Vote for Your Top 3 Star Wars Films!

In honor of Star Wars Day 🙂 In terms of box office numbers The Force Awakens destroys any other Star Wars film, with worldwide gross at $2.06 Billion, totaling almost double the next closest (The Last Jedi at $1.3 Billion). Then again, if you adjust for inflation then A New Hope takes the cake at …

Launch of My Reading List

Hello everyone! Here is just a short little post to announce that I've added a new page this week titled "Reading List." On it you'll find books that I'm currently reading, books that I have on my radar, and books that I've already finished this year. I'll be updating it frequently so keep checking back! …

Writing Powerful Villains

I am making my way through Robert McKee's Story (subtitled Style, Structure, Substance, and the Principles of Screenwriting) for the second time (it's just so good!) and I wanted to touch on McKee's principle of "the negation of the negation" and how it used to create the most powerful villains. First, when I say "powerful villain" I don't …

Progress is Key

So I'm not going to lie. This week was a little rough on the writing front. What with preparing for the state of the union AND the Super Bowl in the same week, I was pretty swamped 😉 Nah just kidding, but it was fairly tough getting words on the page. My "normal" job had …

First Five Chapter Titles

This week has been very productive. I'm still making my way through the first four chapters and am now rough drafting chapter 5. As such, I thought I'd take a minute and share the rough titles of the chapters so far, to give a little bit of a tease of what happens 😉 Of course, …

Rough Draft is Underway!

Hello everyone. Sorry that I haven't posted in a while. Just been getting back into the swing of things after the holidays, and sadly the blog is what fell to the last of the priority list. But now I'm back at it! Even though I haven't shared anything, the last month or so has actually …

Christmas Day – Luke 2

The Gospel According to St Luke Chapter 2 1 And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Cæsar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. 2 (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) 3 And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. 4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, …

Christmas Eve – ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas

  'Twas the Night Before Christmas or A Visit from St. Nicholas by: Clement Clarke Moore       'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; The stockings were hung by the chimney with care In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there; The …