Last week I finished reading Melissa Arnold’s The Hazel Wood and I’m still thinking about it. Don’t you love how good stories linger in your memory, how characters ghost around after you read the final page? It’s a YA dark fantasy, the protagonist is 17-year-old Alice Crewe who has spent most of her young life […]
Read the rest of this entry »Archive for the 'Jessica Page Morrell' Category
Write a lot
Write a lot. And I mean a lot. I once read that being a writer was not a hobby, it was an affliction. That rings true for me. I’m forever trying out new stories, trying out new opening chapters, etc. Only a small portion of these ideas ends up on the to do pile on […]
Read the rest of this entry »Writing may or may not be your salavation
Writing may or may not be your salvation; it might or might not be your destiny. But that does not matter. What matters right now are the words, one after another. Find the next word. Right it down. ~ Neil Gaiman
Read the rest of this entry »Take care with minor characters
If you’re going to have a character appear in a story long enough to sell a newspaper, he’d better be real enough that you can smell his breath. ~ Ford Maddox Ford Minor characters are too often faceless walk-ons in fiction. But that means the writer has missed a chance to create reality and complexity. […]
Read the rest of this entry »What will it take?
This has been another grim, difficult week in world affairs and for our tattered republic. So many worrying events going on; another government shut down, DACA hasn’t been fixed, the stock market is volatile, more scandals and cover-ups in the White House. I’m weary, citizens everywhere are weary. But across the Pacific, in another time […]
Read the rest of this entry »Ursula K. LeGuin: There must be darkness to see the stars.
The legendary writer Ursula K LeGuin died on January 22 in her home in Portland, Oregon. She was 88 and leaves a long legacy of novels, stories, essays, poems, and musings. It goes without saying that she inspired millions, including many writers. Her website is a wonder and includes a link to her blog and […]
Read the rest of this entry »Joan Didion
“I’m not telling you to make the world better, because I don’t think that progress is necessarily part of the package. I’m just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To […]
Read the rest of this entry »Join me at Writers in the Grove 2018 Authors Conference, January 27
For more information visit their site here. I’ll be teaching a workshop on Character Arc. Keynote speaker Deborah Reed. Other workshops by Holly Lorincz, Chip McGregor, Paulann Petersen, MaryJane Nordgren, and Kristen Thiel.
Read the rest of this entry »Be generous to your characters
Be generous to your characters; kill them, save them, break their hearts and then heal them. Stuff them with life, histories, emotions, and people they love and once you’ve done that, once they’re bursting at the seams; strip them bare. Find out what they look like–how they stand, talk, move when they have nothing left. […]
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