Muse On Line Writing Conference 2010
It's time to sign up for next year's Muse OnLine Conference. This is one writing opportunity you don't want to miss. This conference is the brain child of Lea Schizas and Carolyn Howard-Johnson. A large number of talented writers, editors, publishers, and agents donate their time for a week to offer live chats and forum workshops in a variety of writing areas. This year, as in past years, there have been sessions devoted to web site building, writing for the trades, children's writing, world-building, improving your writing skills and a number of other sessions to improve your writing. New this year were live sessions where you could pitch your novel directly to a publishing house such

Read It Out Loud
Today, I read Hope Clark's latest Funds for Writers newsletter. In it, she wrote an editorial listing things one should do to make their writing improve. While her thoughts were not new, they are ones which should be remembered. Briefly, she mentioned reading your work out loud; making a print copy instead of reading on the computer; take a break from the work and look back at it later; read your printed copy someplace other than your work area; use a thesaurus; and edit one area of your project at a time - e.g. first grammar, then sentence structure, then voice, etc.What struck me as a great idea, and one I didn't know existed, was the possibility of having your work read bac

What Do You Do When You're Stuck?
Okay, I have to admit, I'm stuck. I'm working on the sequel to my middle grade novel, Ghost for Rent. When I wrote the original book, I had several people say they'd love to see my young sleuths tackle more ghostly mysteries and that they could see a series. This sounded reasonable to me and I began work on the second book, Ghost for Dinner.We live in an area of high paranormal activity. Several of the older buildings around town, including the high school, what used to a notions shop, a restaurant, and a few houses have had ghostly sightings. It's easy to see where my MC could take on another "mystery." I decided the restaurant was the next place

Guest Blogger, Terri Main, "Beyond Writers Guidelines"
Today, we have a guest blogger, Terri Main, author of Creative Calisthenics, a wonderful book filled with tips to "jump start" your muse. I reviewed this book a few months ago and I'm still impressed with Ms. Main's ideas. Below are some of her thoughts on the best wa

Ghosts and such
Tomorrow is Halloween. It's the time for ghosts, goblins, vampires and such to take to the streets and school or church sponsored parties.Instead of eating candy, gorge yourself on a good spine-tingling book. Stephen King and Peter Straub come immediately to mind. This is where I do a little horn tooting and suggest my own, Ghost for Rent. This middle grade novel is perfect for reading on Halloween or any other day when your son or daughter, ages 9-12, might be looking for a little taste of a paranormal mystery.Check out my web site: http://www.pennylockwoodehrenkranz.yolasite.com for an excerpt and reviews. Or, go straight to Hardshell Word Factory