Category: My writing

Hey, SE Readers. Joan here today with more of my thoughts on writing.

“Truth is stranger than fiction.”

Probably everyone has heard this quote or some variation. If you google for who wrote it, you’re not likely to get a definitive answer. Some say it was Lord Byron, while others attribute the quote to Mark Twain.

Even Tom Clancy got in on the game when he said:

“The difference between reality and fiction? Fiction has to make sense.”

Clancy was right. Truth is often strange, and life doesn’t always make sense. There are some things we can’t make up.

I’ve been a people watcher for years—long before I became a writer. Sitting in a crowded shopping mall, airport, or restaurant is at the least entertaining. Last year, I wrote a post about how we can use observations for story ideas.

But we also have our own experiences. And yes, some…

by Lauren Sapala

For the longest time I had major problems doing revisions on my writing. It seemed so easy for everyone else. Why was it so hard for me? Of course, I also had trouble writing. I hardly ever experienced that state of “effortless flow” everyone talked about, in which the words just magically spewed out of me down onto the page. For years—a lot  of years—I felt like something was wrong with me. I felt like I was a failure as a writer.

Then, I discovered something.

Hey SE Readers. It’s Friday and time for another book share. I usually share a work of fiction (after all this site is about writing fiction), but today I’m going to do something a little different. I’m going to share a few of my favorite (and most helpful) books on writing.

The Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi – I purchased this book when it first released several years ago and found it extremely helpful. Recently the authors published a new version that lists 130 different emotions.

Each entry defines that particular emotion, notes, physical signs and behaviors, internal sensations, mental responses, acute or long-term responses to said emotion, associated power verbs, and more.

Angela and Becca have also published The Emotional Wound Thesaurus, Negative Trait Thesaurus, Positive Trait Thesaurus, The Rural Setting Thesaurus, The Urban Setting Thesaurus, and Emotion Amplifiers.

I’ve found each of these books useful…

Theme: Dark fantasy and horror by disabled artists featuring disabled protagonists.

Looking for 1,500 to 5,500 words in length short horror and dark fantasy by disabled authors. Paying $10 flat and an eBook copy, plus offering unlimited at-cost print books to authors in the anthology.  Previously unpublished original work preferred, but reprints will be considered if the work is no longer in print or the work is older than ten years in age.

Please let us know if it is a re-print. No simultaneous submissions. We will want exclusive e-publication rights for one year (first publication rights if it’s unpublished).

Please submit it as a .doc or .rtf or .txt document, double spaced, 12 pt, Times New Roman or similar, to sumikoska@yahoo.com

Deadline: March 31, 2019

Cover art by Lillian Rose Asterios

Hello SErs. Harmony here. Being a writer, I’d like to tell you a story …

Once upon a time, Amazon charged me for selling a book. Yes, that’s right. I ended up paying them $1.99 for selling one copy of an ebook. Um, that’s not right. Once I got over my indignant anger, I looked into it.

It came down to delivery charges.

Which I’d not realised Amazon did.

And if your book is oversized (see below), they will levy a hefty charge to deliver that book to your customer, leaving you out of pocket and owing them, rather than the other way around.

This happened after I reformatted a book. On my computer, the file size was fine. Only after using Amazon’s converter did the file become huge. Sadly, I didn’t notice anything amiss until I saw that negative sale charge on my sales dashboard. And by then it…