● If you love to read, you might be a writer. ● If you take time to look up words in the dictionary, you might be a writer. ● If…
Read More
Most stories are best written in past tense. Paradoxically, with past tense, readers have a present sense of what has happened and comfortably move forward with what happens next. In…
Read More
After beginning his career as a safety engineer, Justin Wilson (1914–2001) hosted several cooking shows and wrote seven Cajun cookbooks. Wilson’s safety talks and cooking information may have been helpful,…
Read More
Am I my brother’s keeper? Maybe not, but we are responsible for our words. Jesus said, “You can be sure, on Judgment Day, people will have to account for every…
Read More
In ancient times, reading must have been difficult without spaces and punctuation between words. Now we have periods, commas, and colons. There are hyphens, short dashes, and long dashes. To…
Read More
An opening phrase introduces something important about the rest of the sentence, or it wouldn’t be there. We need to be sure it fulfills the purpose for which it was…
Read More
ach morning Frank Ball reads a few comic strips to stir his creative thinking. In just a few frames, many of them tell an interesting story with beginning, middle, and…
Read More
Your best writing engages readers in the drama of the story so much that they see the action without noticing your words. This is especially true in dialogue, yet many…
Read More
Writing isn’t the only enterprise with its stress and need for creativity and excellent performance. To quote the wisdom of Solomon, there is a time for everything, a time to…
Read More
Because celebrity sells books, not content, we must build what’s called a “platform,” which is nothing more than a label for achieving some level of celebrity status that guarantees book…
Read More