I'm paying it forward in thanks for the One Lovely Blog Award I recently received from my dear friend Cate Russell-Cole. It definitely made my day to be included in her list of awardees. And it couldn't have come at a better time. I'm going to pass the award to some of my writing friends who will hopefully take the opportunity to pay it forward as well. Here are the rules: One Lovely Blog Award Rules: 1. I need to thank the person who nominated me. check! 2. Share 7 things about myself that you still may not know. check! 3. Nominate up to 15 bloggers. check! 4. Notify the nominees that I have done so. check! 5. Put the logo of the award on my blog site. check! Now seven things about me that you may not know: I worked as a technical writer/editor and proposal manager in the aerospace industry for thirty years after getting a degree in English. Both my parents were born in eastern Europe Mom from Lithuania, Dad from Poland. They met and fell in love in Chicago, … [Read more...]
Inspiring Spaces Blog Hop: share what ignites your creativity
My friend Cate Russell-Cole has started the Inspiring Spaces Blog Hop, and I had to participate. I created the room in our house where I write six years after the suicide death of my son Paul. It was the last room he lived in. I've written about this room and how meaningful and healing it is for me before A version of the following poem appears in my memoir, Leaving the Hall Light On: A Mother's Memoir of Living with Her Son's Bipolar Disorder and Surviving His Suicide. Making Room for Me After six years I stacked Paul's books and records, once in alphabetical order on his closet shelves, in boxes out in the garage, and finally cleared away all the dust. I recreated his room and closet, with a new hardwood floor, a bay picture window, deep taupe walls, a white ceiling and crown molding, and file drawers and book shelves for storing my books and poems. I refurnished his room in shades of black and orange. The sofa is like a futon because he … [Read more...]
Gathering inspiration for your novel
I like Cate Russell-Cole's great advice about gathering inspiration for historical fiction. I've been googling all morning to get inspiring images for my historical novel. Her way is much better. Thanks again Cate. The Power of Day Dreaming in Fiction #Writing by Cate Russell-Cole Set Building I am a fantasy writer, who has hassles with description. Day dreaming and visualising is the only way I can cut through all the one sided fuzz that runs through my head. Otherwise my writing just sounds like a monologue! For me it's a challenge as I am very analytical. I am more interested in the ˜why' and ˜how' of the story, than telling it. I have a few tricks for getting over this: Pinterest, story boarding and set building. The last two set my ideas in concrete; Pinterest shows me things I can mull over, and all these techniques expand and improve my work. I find I rarely click on the links in Pinterest, it is the images or quotes which give me the ideas, so … [Read more...]
A warm welcome to Cate Russell-Cole. She’s all about being positive
I love that I've gotten to know Cate Russell-Cole so much better in the last few weeks. She's always been so supportive of my work by retweeting, liking, and commenting on stuff I post around my social media networks. She has even placed my book on the list of the memoir writers and services that she follows on Twitter. It is here: https://twitter.com/cateartios/memoir-writers/members. Cate provides support for writers and has founded with Kathy Pooler, Sharon Lippincott, and Sherrey Meyer (all writers I deeply respect and admire) the Memoir Project, a nonprofit initiative that shares memoir writing skills, news and resources, promotes quality memoir writing web sites, and builds a supportive community for writers at all levels. I encourage you to visit the Write Your Life Story Memoir Project. Even if you don't write in the memoir genre, I'm sure you'll find something to help enhance your writing there. Now I'd like to introduce Cate. She has generously written a guest post … [Read more...]
