craft

Radio Interview | Anjuelle Floyd on “From the Heart and Soul”…

Please join me as a guest of Rachel Berry aka Lady Serenity, on From the Heart and Soul as I discuss how I came to writing, my process for crafting fiction, my collection of short stories, Keeper of Secrets…Translations of an Incident, and my soon to be released, novel The House.

So tune in.

Radio Interview | Anjuelle Floyd on “From the Heart and Soul”… Read More »

Of Apprenticeships, Marketing and Patience…

[Writer’s Digest]–“What’s the most important change happening in the publishing industry right now that’s impacting the future of the author-agent relationship?”

[Agent–Paige Wheeler of Folio Literary Management]: “The change in the delivery mechanism is huge. Barriers of entry to publishing are down, and authors are able to make (their work) available to anyone with an Internet connection. It’s still a small percentage of the business, but it’s growing. ..the two biggest obstacles to success seem to be spectacular editorial content and the market capability to reach a vast audience. At Folio, we’ve been exploring opportunities (for) providing outside services (marketing, speakers services, licensing, apps) to really serve (authors’) needs.”

–Evolution of the Literary Agent, Writer’s Digest, October 2010

Agent, Paige Wheeler’s response to the question presented by the interviewer from Writer’s Digest gives a succinct summary of the new world of publishing that is available to writers and authors in connecting with readers.

Her comments also tell what we must do to be successful as career authors.

Of Apprenticeships, Marketing and Patience… Read More »

Katherine Harms–writer aboard S/Y No Boundaries

When I first began writing, I wanted to write, because I wanted to have published something.

In 2000, I started writing, because I had something to say.

In 2000, during Lent I studied the life of Hannah, the mother of Samuel as a model for making sacrifices.

By the autumn, I was working on a novel about Hannah.

I had discovered that her faith journey in ancient Israel had many parallels with the faith journey of a woman in the twenty-first century, despite the three millennia that separated Hannah and me.

In 2004, my book, Hannah’s Journal, placed third in a field of 270 entries in the Christian Writers Guild First Novel Contest.

That book is still unpublished, but my success in the contest invigorated me.

I soon tackled two more novels, which are at present unfinished. The reason is that I continued to develop a better sense of direction as a writer.

In the beginning, I almost dismissed my non-fiction writing as busy work, something to do when I couldn’t think of any stories.

I wrote meditations, prayers, worship guides, articles and teaching plans.

While I struggled with the problems of plot, character development, setting, dialogue and so forth that are part of the craft of a fiction writer, I wrote commentary and background spontaneously, as a natural outgrowth of my research.

One day I had the mind-boggling revelation that it was possible to be a successful writer without selling a novel.

Katherine Harms–writer aboard S/Y No Boundaries Read More »

Magic, Mosaics, and the Alchemical Process of Becoming…

“Like turning base metal into gold, that’s what revision is to me.”

Susan Gabriel, psychotherapist, and author of Seeking Sara Summers

During my recent interview with Susan Gabriel she honestly stated that when first beginning to write she hated the process of revision.

On thanking her for being so truthful, I said that I had felt the same way.

We both then agreed that now upon reaching the stage of having written the rough/1st drafts of novels we love the stage of revising.

It was at this point that Susan wisely coined the phrase that she experienced the process of revision as one of “…turning base metal into gold.”

Magic, Mosaics, and the Alchemical Process of Becoming… Read More »

Of Kings, Strategies and Tactics…

Capture of the King in chess ends the game. And thus the role of each piece or character’s movements works towards the larger goals of protecting the King of the same color and capturing the King of the opponent.

The players move their characters and/or chess pieces towards accomplishing these two tasks.

In this way process of playing the game of chess resembles that of writing a book. While writers do not move our characters around the chessboard of our stories like the pieces of a chess game, each character of a novel or short story carries her or his own role, both in the narrative line and the structure of the plot.

Of Kings, Strategies and Tactics… Read More »

Of Terry Brooks, Magic, and The Writer vs. The Author…

“There are writers and there are authors. Writers seek to write, and they seek to write better and better with every book. Authors seek only to be published, and they seek advances to match their egos.”

–Elizabeth George in Sometimes the Magic Works: Lessons from a Writing Life by Terry Brooks.

Elizabeth George offers this word of advice on the third page of the Introduction in Terry Brooks’ book on the craft of writing. That is what Brooks focuses upon in the tightly written book of 197 pages Sometimes the Magic Works: Lessons from a Writing Life. Clearly his words have left an impression on me. This is my third blog on his book and I’ve yet to finish it.

Of Terry Brooks, Magic, and The Writer vs. The Author… Read More »

Of Romance, Truth, and Purging the Hidden Pools of Consciousness…

Many things can happen during the approach towards the heart of a story, or novel, both for the protagonist, and the writer.

The blossoming flower of romance provides a mainstay in many stories that tug and keep open the hearts and minds of readers, wherein new possibilities enter for them to ponder both in the narrative line of the story, or novel, that perhaps offers a mirror into their own lives.

We come to books, and read not only to know that we are not alone, but also to solidify, validate and unconsciously prepare ourselves for the one constant in all of human living–change.

Of Romance, Truth, and Purging the Hidden Pools of Consciousness… Read More »