I AM WRITING

May 2021 It's truly a big month. My heart stuck in my throat. Sometimes I want to throw up. Looking at houses. Getting the house in a seller's market Seeing my past come by My husband was really supportive My son got upset about the thought of having to live in California   He got upset therefore he got me upset. My daughter insists that she is too emotional  therefore needs her medication increased Feeling useless Feeling like a failure Also, my daughter grieves her dad Because she missed him so Misinterpreting it as having a mental breakdown Big emotions Complicated emotions Sifting through them is tough Tomorrow we go back to Tennessee What the future holds Is uncertainty You want to make things fit just right. It's hard and there are Too many sacrifices. You know life is so complicated I've written about wanting it to fit Just perfectly so in whatever container I want it to But it never does I get discouraged You look at your children as extensions of yourself And y

If you’re a fiction writer, you might not want to hear this. And I don’t blame you. It can be hard to hear. Because what we  want  is for our fiction to stand on it’s own. What we want is to believe that if we’re good enough, we don’t have to do any of that icky marketing stuff. But it’s not true. Not for you. Not for me. Not for Stephen King or J.K. Rowling or anyone. Finding your audience is your responsibility. Trust me when I tell you that your publisher won’t do that for you. They’ll support you as best they can, but it is your job to let readers know about your book. And since you’re you’re good at the whole stringing words together thing, one of your best available tools is blogging. Writing a blog (on your own website, on a free WordPress blog, right here on Medium, wherever) is a way for you to build a bridge between yourself and your readers. Let’s assume I’ve convinced you that if you’re a fiction writer, you need to blog. Your instinct might be to blog

This is one of my favorite exercises for developing solid characters. It came from one of my MFA professors. Think of virtue and vice on a continuum. Like Aristotle did. To humanize both your protagonist and your antagonist, it’s important to understand where they’re coming from and how they got to where they are. For your hero — think about their biggest virtue. Maybe they’re just very nice. Or maybe they’re brave. Or noble. Or honest. What happens when you take ‘nice’ too far? You get a doormat, right? You get someone whose vice is that they can’t stand up for themselves. A bravery? Taken too far, bravery becomes recklessness. Nobility taken too far becomes arrogance. Honest leads to cruelty. Your hero’s failing is probably connected pretty closely to the thing that makes them most heroic. For your villain — turn it around. If your villain is cruel, maybe the root of that cruelty lies in honesty. Or maybe there’s someone that they’re nice to (ma