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Finn and Elara: Exploring Boundaries in a New Realm

Editing, Editing, Editing…when do I get back to writing? I am happy to say I’ve finished my editing and re-write of sections of A New Past to create a less explicit version of the story. I’m not getting the final formatting sorted out and posted on Amazon for publishing. It’s bee…

Exploring Character Conflicts in Another Past

As I’ve been re-editing Another Past: Book Two, it’s given me the opportunity to review some scenes I haven’t read or touched in nearly a decade. Here is one of my favorites, as Paul and Jeryl fit the first season of their reality-TV show, The Interns. THE SCENE Camera lights cam…

Another Past : Available on Amazon

I’m happy to announce Another Past: Book One is available for purchase on Amazon Kindle and Kindle Unlimited. It will be available for print orders (paperback and hardback) in the middle of the month as well. Meet Paul Taylor, a gifted teen with an extraordinary secret: he’s actu…

Oxford Comma vs. No Oxford Comma: What Writers Should Know

Which is the best for comma usage in fiction? To be, or not to be?  As I’ve been revising and editing Another Past: Book One, I’ve run into an inconsistency in my editing tools. In the review tools built into Ulysses, where my definitive content lives, Oxford commas are used. Thi…

Another Past: Book One

Meet Paul Taylor, a gifted teen with an extraordinary secret: he’s actually a brilliant physicist from the future, caught in a thrilling time-travel adventure! After being attacked and hurled back through time, Paul finds himself living his adolescent life once more. But this tim…

Secrets, Surveillance, and Survival in Technomancer

An excerpt from Technomancer. “Elara!” Finn called out sharply as he watched one of the feeds from the neighborhood spy-cams he had set up. The three-person team in cheap business suits were too well organized to be random pollsters. He watched as they stopped people on the stree…

Overcoming Writing Blocks: Tips to Reignite Your Muse

I’ve hit a little block on my two works-in-progress. Neither is fully blocked, in so far that I know where I want the story to go, but both are feeling more like work to write at the moment. Since the first 25k words in each came almost effortlessly, it gives a pause when it star…

Understanding Character Depth Through the Lens of Who

I recently started to get caught up on Writing Excuses, Season 20 while commenting into work. Specifically, Episode 5: Lens 1 - Who. The discussion introduces “the lens of who” — which means talking about characters. This is a great refresher on making characters that are multi-d…

Crafting a Compelling Book Summary

Summarizing a novel always feels tough for me. Maybe I'm too close to the content and want too many details in the summary. Maybe I don't know what really engages potential readers to attract their interest. Now that I've finished polishing my first draft of Technomancer, I need …

Navigating Plot Challenges: Writing into a Corner

I've been editing and polishing my latest story, as discussed last month. I know I'm making the story better and stronger, but it is not without its challenges. One issue I faced is the skipping of progress in certain character/conflict arcs. My method of tracing these arcs expos…

Essential Editing Tips for Novelists: Filling Plot Holes

Last week I discussed ongoing editing of my current work in progress. The difference between creating and editing has been a motivational struggle, but I feel I have gotten into a rhythm over the past week. Here are a few accomplishments and observations since that last post. Plo…

Identifying Plot Gaps in Your Novel

I've been continuing with my review of my draft novel. I fully believed I had completed it from a plot perspective. Much to my chagrin, a review for editing has shown a big gap in the story. Here's what happened. As part of the review I have begun, I created a tally of the major …