It’s been a long time since I have blogged, hasn’t it? I hope everyone has had a super fabulous new year and now busy pursuing their goals.
I have a couple of announcements. The first is the banner above, which is a book tour for one of my backlisted books, Final Mend. You can click on the banner to follow the tour. I’m really excited about this tour and am waiting with bated breath, as there are a couple of new reviews and I’m anxious to see them. Also, this tour ends on my BIRTHDAY! Yay!
One of my goals throughout every year is to help other writers, and I haven’t exactly been pursuing that goal lately. But this year, I kicked that off with judging manuscripts that my local RWA chapter is hosting. I both hate and love judging manuscripts. I hate it because what if I’m bored and I don’t to hurt the writer’s feelings. But I love it because it also teaches me how to be a better writer, and helps me to help others.
We’ve had some great entries this year, and I’m excited to see where these entries go. I left a comment on one of the manuscripts that I judged that I thought might be useful for everyone, including me. It’s regarding colons and semi-colons. The bane of my writing. Ugh.
Although it’s grammatically correct, sometimes using a colon or semi-colon tells us there’s an author behind this story, and draws us out of the story. Readers want to read this story as if they are seeing or experiencing it really happening, not as if there’s an author telling us what’s happening.
I have used semi-colons, and even colons because it’s grammatically correct. But the best writing in the world is not grammatically correct. Some grammar is absolutely essential, yes, but other grammar, as in these types of instances, is intrusive.
What do you think?
One of my other pet-peeves in reading? Seeing “she thought”. That is telling. I don’t want to be told what she’s thinking. Get me inside her mind. I don’t particularly like italics for me to be inside a character’s mind either, but that’s all very subjective.
As a writer, it’s difficult to get inside a character’s head, especially if they won’t let you or if the story is new to you. But if you don’t get inside that character’s head, there is no way a reader will, either. So whatever works for you, do it! It will make your story so much stronger.
What works for me varies, and sometimes I have to skip over it and come back to it later, in my editing stage. I’ve just started a new story (yay!) and I’ve got some submitted and also in the editing phases. So I’m hoping to have an active writing year and get some of my stories out there, and out of my head!
Another of my biggest goals, as is every year, is to be CREATIVE!
Until next time, I hope everyone has a super fabulous and creative 2017!
