I’ll spare you my opinions on the election, but there is a deep thundering within me. Sorrow wants to swallow me whole and hold me in grief’s endless prison. And the world is simply a atilt, dizzying, and bewildering. A planet galactic and empty and cold. However, I just want to say this to writers, […]
Read the rest of this entry »Archive for the 'Jessica Page Morrell' Category
If it’s October 31st, NaNoWriMo** Starts at Midnight
Steady, cold rainfall here.Trick-or-treaters will need to wear layers tonight–and carry umbrellas. Even though we’re oddly not an umbrella-wielding bunch in the Pacifc Northwest. It was one of the first things I noticed about autumn rains when I first moved here. Not that no one ever carries one, but they’re sometimes a rare sight in […]
Read the rest of this entry »Desperate characters = stakes and motivation
On Sunday I was awakened in the wee hours by the roar of rain thundering down. I stepped out onto my porch with it’s metal roof and stood under the clamorous power, breathing in the clouds and wet. And then it took hours to get back to sleep, but that’s another story. Later, after tracking […]
Read the rest of this entry »A powerful story is felt…
A good story is told; a powerful story is felt. In every scene you write ask yourself what your viewpoint character is feeling, and if your viewpoint is deep or immersive enough so readers can feel it too. Breath by breath. Limb by limb.
Read the rest of this entry »First paragraph: Happiness Falls: A Novel by Angie Kim
Chapter One Lock, Bach, and K-pop We didn’t call the police right away. Later, I would blame myself, wonder if things would have turned out differently if I hadn’t shrugged it off, insisted Dad wasn’t missing but was just delayed probably still in the woods looking for Eugene, thinking he’d run off somewhere. Mom says it […]
Read the rest of this entry »First Paragraphs: The Paper Palace, Miranada Cowley Heller
Things come from nowhere. The mind is empty, and then, inside a frame, a pear. Perfect, green, the stem atilt, a single leaf. It sits in a white ironstone bowl, nestled among the limes, in the center of a weathered picnic table, on an old screen porch, at the edge of a pond, deep in […]
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