Newsworthy Tid-bits!

Is it Friday already??  I hope you've had as productive a week as I have.  Here are a couple headlines I'd like to share, that made my week a fab one:

«  Yesterday I listened to a live stream of Jessica Bell being interviewed on a  Greek radio station.  (Technology rocks!)  The interviewer asked questions in Greek and translated the answers Jessica provided in English.  (Her voice is so lovely!)  In addition, between questions the station played songs from the soundtrack that was born from String Bridge, Jessica's debut novel which drops on Nov. 1st.  (Jessica wrote the lyrics and sings all the songs.)

If you missed it, don't despair!  Here's a link to the archive:

http://stokokkino.gr/ekpompes/post-rock/2011-10-13.mp3/view

«  Speaking of String Bridge, I am participating in the upcoming launch and blog book tour.  Please come back and visit me on Nov. 2nd when I will review String Bridge, and again on Nov. 8th when I will interview Jessica.  I've prepared some very interesting questions and frankly, I can't wait to find out how Jessica answers them!

«  I've met another rising star in the blogosphere to introduce to those who don't know her yet.  Melanie McCullough's debut YA novel Breathe will launch on Nov. 11th, 2011.  As part of her 100+ blog followers celebration, she's hosting a give-away.  Check out her blog and join the fun by clicking here: A New Kind of Ordinary

«  In personal news, I averted elimination three times now and have advanced to the final round of the speculative fiction writing contest I'm competing in at Writing.com.  The prompt for the final round is a series of photos, each with eerie and cryptic captions.  Drawing inspiration from at least one photo and text, I have to write a short story in any genre and of any length.  I have one week to submit.  Wish me luck!

«  Also, I am up to 11 miles on my long training runs.  The Athens Half Marathon is just around the corner (Oct. 23rd) and I'm getting more excited with each passing day.

«  Lastly, tomorrow I'm walking with my family in the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation's annual Walk For A Cure.  We are part of a team called William's Warriors.  William is a boy who lives across the street, who fell ill a couple winters ago with a nasty virus that triggered the onset of juvenile diabetes in his body.  The outbreak of the virus in the schools led to a sharp and disturbing rise in the number of new juvenile diabetes cases in our community.  It could have been my kids.  So scary.  So we walk every year to show our support and raise money for the research that will, one day, eradicate this heinous disease.

If you are in the Atlanta, GA area this weekend and would like to walk with us, contact me!  [NicoleDucleroir(at)gmail(dot)com]  And, if you'd just like to make a small donation, won't you follow the link below?

William Trimble's Personal Page at Walk to Cure Diabetes

Thank you so much!!!!!!

                                    

Believe You CAN

When I take an honest look at my life, I realize every failed attempt at a goal could be attributed to one simple fact: I didn't believe I could achieve it. And the greatest failure of my adult life has been attempting to write a full-length novel.

During NaNoWriMo 2009, I wrote twenty-four chapters of Overcome, my first-ever novel work-in-progress. It was over 50,000 words and so a success, by NaNo standards. But in the course of 2010, I tried with increasing levels of desperation to write that story through to the end. I couldn't do it. I tried everything, including scrapping the partially written first draft and returning to the plotting stage. When my creative steam fizzled out nineteen chapters into the second first draft, I faced an ugly truth: I couldn't write the novel. And that truth was a fertile bed for fear. I was afraid I'd never write a novel.

You hear the phrases all the time: The Power of Positive Thinking; Self-fulfilling Prophesy; Positive Mindset. Rhonda Byrne sparked a phenomenon in her book The Secret, which is, in itself, a metaphor for believing a dream into reality. Byrne says, "Your current thoughts are creating your future life. What you think about the most or focus on the most will appear as your life." 1

Though writing is still on my front burner, there's another goal brewing in a pot next to it. You see, a couple months ago I took on a new goal, one that has me face-to-face with those principles of self-belief. The lessons I'm (re)learning have filtered through my new experiences and trickled down to my writing.

My new goal: On October 23rd, I will run my first half marathon. A 13.1-mile race is a lofty goal for someone who has never been a runner. I mean, jogging on a dreadmill at the gym a couple times a week, hardly qualified me as a runner. When a girlfriend recently shared her passion for long distance races, I told her it sounded wonderful...but wasn't for me. After all, I said, I'm not a runner.

But you know how it goes: a conversation stays with you, quietly tapping the shoulder of your mind until you finally turn and cry, "What? What do you want from me?" And at the time I was feeling blue, bored with life's regular chug-along. Two days later the weather was gorgeous. It was the first day to signal the end of summer with a bright blue, haze-free sky and low humidity. I decided to forego my gym workout and try an outdoors run.

It was ridiculously hard. My ankles and hip flexors ached, and my thigh muscles burned. I had to keep slowing to a walk to catch my breath. My lungs felt two sizes too small. I don't think I lasted even three miles. But something happened to me out there, sweating in the fresh air. Being outside, free from the stale, recycled air of the gym, unlocked a reserve of resolve I didn't know I had. And, I enjoyed the challenge of trying something new. That day, I decided I was going to be a runner.

I decided I was going to be a runner. When I told this to friends who are runners, they shared lots of suggestions for my success, including tips on training schedules, ideas for diet plans, and pointers on hydration and electrolyte replacement. But the overwhelming piece of advice offered to me was this: Believe you can do it.

Six weeks of training later, I've learned to what extent running is a mental activity. During the difficult legs of a course, particularly up the inclines or through the final miles of a long run, your mind must cheer your body on. Yes you can keep going! You've been up steeper hills than this! You're strong, you CAN make it!

Now, I run up hills without breaking stride or stressing my cardio-vascular system, because even though it's tough, I know I can make it. Twice now I've completed ten-mile training runs. Ten miles! With three weeks of training still ahead of me, I know I can finish a half marathon by race day. I believe it, because I am a runner.

"See the things that you want as already yours. Know that they will come to you at need. Then let them come. Don't fret and worry about them. Don't think about your lack of them. Think of them as yours, as belonging to you, as already in your possession." -- Robert Collier (1885-1950) 2

Not at all coincidentally, work on Piper Crow, (the working title of my second attempt at a novel) has been exciting and productive. This time, I will not let fear sniggle its way into my heart. I can write a novel because I believe I can do it.

After all, I am a novelist. 

         

[The above article was written by me and originally appeared today in the Drama Newsletter at Writing.com.]       

Thanks for reading!    

                 

Up For Air

I'm popping my head through the surface of the writing pool to gulp some fresh air and say hello.  I've missed my blogging friends so much!  But the energy coursing through me for my newest writing project is high, high, HIGH and I am loving it.  Here's what I've been up to:

*  I'm deep in the planning stages of "Untitled WiP."  *note to self: Figure out a working title, at least!*

*  The characters have all shown up and are clamoring for my attention.  Some days, the greatest challenge is hushing one character so I can listen to what the other one is screaming at me.  Every new detail sends me in a scribble frenzy, trying to make bullet points of all the new ideas I'll need to expand upon, that have streamed out of that moment of inspiration.

*  One day, I stopped writing to massage my cramped hand when I heard the school bus outside.  My kids were home from school -- and I realized I'd been writing for FIVE hours straight!  That, my friends, has never happened to me before!

*  I've been researching on the Internet:  The first major turning point thrusts main character Piper Crow out of her regular life and jettisons her across the globe to the Central African Republic (CAR).  I lived in that country between 1994 and 1996, but a lot has changed there in the past fifteen years.  Also, the story will deal with characters who entered the CAR in 1960, fifty-one years before Piper was born.  I've needed to refresh my memory about the country's history, which I learned in preparation for my Peace Corps service but have since forgotten the specific details.  I want to weave CAR's historical past, with regard to the political and social climate at the time the country gained its independence from France, into those characters' backstories, as that storyline heavily impacts Piper's present-day life.

*  On the reading front, I'm mid-way through Jessica Bell's String Bridge!  Stunning book, so far!

*  Finally, I stumbled upon a wonderful YouTube series by Martha Alderson called How to Plot a Novel, Memoir or Screenplay.  I watched all 27 Steps and was guided and motivated by Martha's advice.  The series does not promote plotting in a strict sense, but rather provides a wealth of tips to help organize your thoughts and establish the rhythm of energy your book should have for the greatest emotional impact on the reading audience.  I especially liked Martha's down-to-earth, organic vibe in this entirely unscripted series.  If you are interested, here is the first Step.  If you enjoy it, you'll be able to follow the rest of the series from there:

And for anyone who'd like to see more photos from our extraordinary vacation on the Mediterranean Sea between Italy and Malta, I'd like to link my Facebook photo albums.  These links are for public viewership, but if you have any trouble viewing them and we aren't FB friends already, just send me a friend request!

More Italy/Malta Pix 2011

Malta 2011

Tuscany 2011

Until next time, happy writing!!

                                    

Departure From Myself (+ PHOTOS!!)

Taken from our cliff side table at lunch, Ravello, Italy (Amalfi Coast)

The beauty of vacation lies in its pure departure from routine, everyday life. It's a reversal in quotidian tides; dessert before dinner. Heck, it's dessert instead of dinner. At least, that's how I'd describe my recent vacation to Italy and Malta. And though it was no surprise that I adjusted with yogic flexibility to the welcomed disruption in my personal life, I didn't anticipate how vacation would affect my writing life.

The Axioma, our home for two weeks.

With regard to my personal life, I am firmly rooted in America's middle class. So to sail the Mediterranean Sea by private yacht from Naples was a two-week out-of-body experience. We visited Capri and Italy's Amalfi Coast. We enjoyed the Eolian Islands before cruising between Calabria and Sicily through the strait of Messina and on to Malta.

The boat's crew of twelve outnumbered us. They were gracious and enthusiastic, and when they'd satisfied any needs we had, they catered to whims we hadn't yet thought of. With no household chores to perform or meals to prepare, I was free to bask in the sun and swim in the sea. To play with the kids and dance with my husband. To sip champagne with my sister, giggle like children, and whisper our secrets. We snorkeled, jet skied, kayaked, water skied and wake boarded. We went sightseeing and even climbed to a volcano's crater. And I wrote.

The kids knew where to find me each morning, on the top
deck, writing in my journal.

Just as my regular-life duties dissolved during vacation, so did my normal writing style. I am by nature a tightly wound writing instrument. Though my creativity flows freely, my process is laboriously obsessive. As images translate to words, their essence is usually sucked, sentence by sentence, back up off the paper to be kneaded and massaged in my mind, until some semblance of "first draft perfection" is regurgitated before I can go on to the next line. (I'm working on changing my habits, though it may require a few more vacations.)

In Italy, I wrote every day in my journal. The first entry was penned on the plane as we took off from Atlanta. Per usual, my handwriting was neat. I wrote in complete sentences and searched for creative modifiers to enhance my thoughts. Very quickly though, my style began to mutate. Within days, I'd deserted all my rules. I wrote with abandon, filling page after page with writing that looks and sounds nothing like my usual work.

My penmanship was loopy and messy. I wrote sentence fragments of misspelled words, sometimes in straight lines, but more often in clumps or sideways, following along the binding or page edges. I doodled. I expressed myself from the soul.

It was as exhilarating as flying full-throttle on a jet ski across the turquoise surface of the Mediterranean.

I'd forgotten how wonderful it is to keep a journal, and I intend to continue now that I've returned to regular life. Journaling frees your mind, helps you remember events, and connects you to your emotions. The absence of rules awakens your creativity and allows you to explore nonlinear thought patterns and expressions. Stories whisper from every page.

Every time I open my journal will be a little creative vacation from reality.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Who wouldn't be inspired to write in this location? (Capri, Italy)

My sister Natalie and I, after climbing 2000 steps from sea level to the top of the cliffs near Positano.  We actually swam back to the boat, anchored 900 ft offshore, after walking back down!

From the left, Sidney on the back of Christian's jet ski, and Cody and I in kayaks.

Me, Natalie and Christian during our 2000 step climb, enjoying the view from the cliffs.

(Remember the photo at the top of this post?) Sweet Sidney and I, taken during lunch.

Christian and I outside a spa on the island of Ischia, right after his deep-tissue massage and my hour-and-a-half long Chocolate Massage.  Yes, I was THAT spoiled on this trip!

Christian and I, climbing Vico Volcano. It's most recent eruption was 100 years ago...and we climbed right up to the crater.  Breathtaking!

Me, rocking the wake board!

Shot of Vico Volcano, taken from the deck of our boat.  (Sorry for the out-of-orderness of these photos, btw.  I got tired of battling Blogger.)

Me and my kids, ashore for dinner in Siracusa, Sicily.

From left, daughter Sidney, nephew Luchino, sister Natalie, me, and son Cody. When we snorkled at dive sites in open sea, we wore bright shirts so the crew could keep a regular "head count" from the tender.

I have so many photos of our time in Italy and Malta.  I'll definitely share more, soon!

Thanks for visiting today!!

   

[Text from this post was originally written for and published in the August 10, 2011 Drama Newsletter at Writing.com.  I am the original author :)) ]

                                    

Strong & Beautiful, INSIDE & Out

Just found this new video of my sister.  Isn't she gorgeous?

                                    

Salmonella-spiked Turkey

(Hello! I'm working on a post to share some vacation pictures with you. Unfortunately, all my pix are enormous -- as in 4320x3240 pixels. Anyone know if it's possible to mass reduce the size of whole folders of photos? 'Cause doing it one pic at a time is going to put me over the edge... In the meantime, here's a random current events entry.)  

In an attempt to re-acclimate myself with the regular grind (as my switch is stubbornly stuck on Vacation Mode), I ventured to the grocery store yesterday for milk.


The drive to the nearest store is literally 3-1/2 minutes from my house, which is why I try not to shop there. At any time in the store's 24-hour day I am sure to bump into at least two neighbors; and during peak hours, I find myself leaning on my cart five to eight times and chatting up an extra hour or so that I hadn't allotted to errand-running. Time management is NOT my friend, to start with. So I often shop in a food store farther from my house.


However, since yesterday was just an excuse to get out of the house, I went to my neighborhood Kroger. At the register, I was surprised when the cashier handed me a receipt for milk that was long enough to categorize a week's worth of groceries. She explained the extra type dealt with the ground turkey recall.


Since I use my Kroger card when I shop in the store, the computer was able to spit out all the dates and UPC codes when I bought now-recalled ground turkey. I learned that since February 20, I bought fourteen packages of potentially tainted turkey. I guess I shop at Kroger more often than I realized.


I searched my freezers but found none of this turkey, which means we ate all of it. That's a lot of bullets to dodge.


But here's the thing I'm most struck by: The recalled turkey came from one processing center. "On August 3, Cargill recalled 36 million pounds of fresh and frozen ground turkey products produced at the company’s Springdale, Ark., facility from Feb. 20, 2011, through Aug. 2, 2011, due to possible contamination with Salmonella Heidelberg." (Source) That same turkey has been sold under the following brands:


Honeysuckle White
Giant Eagle
Aldi’s Fit & Active
Fresh HEB
Riverside
Kroger
Safeway
Shady Brook Farms
Spartan
Natural Lean
Bulk packed ground turkey


So though I've often suspected, I now know for sure that when I pay $1.50-2.50 more per pound for Honeysuckle or Shady Brook Farms turkey, I'm getting the EXACT SAME product as if I spent less money on the store brand.


Friends, I've helped fund those name brand companies' marketing campaigns for the last time. Lesson learned!






Happy Friday!

                                    

Where the *bleep* Am I?

If you're reading this between July 15 and July 31, you will not find me here.  I'm off with my husband, kids, sister, nephew and friend, vacationing like rock stars!  Here's my itinerary:

The evening of July 15, I'm taking one of these...

Source

...leaving Atlanta on a flight to Paris, connecting the following afternoon (European time) to Pisa, Italy.

I'll spend the weekend at my sister's house near here:

Montalcino, Italy (Photo Source)

...with lots of family members and friends. Can't wait!!

Then, on Monday July 18, some of us take one of these:

Not THIS Private Corporate Jet...but one like it! (Photo Source)

...to Malta.  Not sure where Malta is?  I'll show you:

Source

Waiting for us to board will be one of these:

NOT this yacht, but one like it! (Photo Source)

We'll sail for close to two weeks up the coasts of Sicily and mainland Italy, arriving here on the 30th:

Naples, Italy (photo source)

From Naples, we fly to NYC where we'll spend one more night with my sister, boyfriend and her son, then we fly commercial back to Atlanta on the 31st.

Actual photos of our vacation will follow!

Until then, have a wonderful July and I'll be back in August to revive my regular blogging schedule.  

See you then!!! J

                                    

Characters that Capture the Imagination

Photo Source

         The gym where I work out is only slightly larger than a corner pharmacy. But the modern facility with state-of-the-art equipment, located a short drive from our house is my daily, early-morning haunt. The cardio stage faces the weight training area, so when I'm not conjuring new character ideas during treadmill workouts, I am people watching. As you can imagine, those two pastimes often overlap.

         Typically, the same crowd of early risers shows up Monday through Friday between 7:00 and 8:30 a.m. Among the regulars, there's the muscular girl whose shapely legs I covet. There's the man I silently cheer on ever since he told me he's already shed 150 of the 225 pounds he needs to lose to achieve his goal weight. And there's The Grunter, who dresses like he's in gym class, circa 1955, and who loudly clears his throat on average once every thirty seconds. Recently, though, an unfamiliar pair of members arrived on our scene. They showed up wearing the trademark bright, factory-fresh sneakers of motivated gym newbies. I haven't been able to keep my eyes off them since.

         Every day they arrive together and leave together, but while they are in the gym they work alone. Both appear to be in their fifties, and I assume they are a couple. They know their way around the equipment. Unlike timid newbies who steer clear of the complicated-looking apparatuses, their workouts entail far more than random sets on unrelated Nautilus machines. Instead, they target specific opposing-muscle groups -- like back and biceps, or chest and triceps. And they maintain good form while executing precise movements, thus avoiding the injury traps that more inexperienced members easily fall into.

         They rarely speak to each other, and I've neither seen them partner up nor spot one another. There's no air of anger or distain between them, though. They simply move around like people who are used to sharing the same space and are comfortable in their own silence. Every once in a while a quick smile passes between them.

         By now, you may have formed an image of these people in your mind. Close your eyes and take a moment to gaze upon them. What do they look like, to you? Earlier, I said I can't keep my eyes off them. Here's why:

         The man is scarecrow-skinny and easily over six feet tall. His wiry gray hair spills over his shoulders like a scraggly shawl, and his gaunt cheeks are covered by a dishwater gray beard that's so long its wispy ends reach south of his solar plexus. Though there is something graceful about his movements, he walks with the hunched gait of a man accustomed to manual labor. He wears the same ratty baseball cap every day.

         The woman is of medium height, though when walking next to the man she's dwarfed by his stature. Like him, she is very thin. She wears boxy t-shirts that hang on her frame and tend to draw my eyes to her pronounced elbows and knobby knees. She pulls her graying brown hair away from a weathered and make-up-free face, cinching it in a stubby ponytail at the base of her neck. Her mouth and chin are sunken in, as if her teeth were missing. A wristwatch or a pair of earrings would look conspicuously out-of-place on her.

         In short, they don't look at all like "gym people," which is why I find them so fascinating to watch. When they're working out, I don't even notice the muscular girl, the shrinking man or The Grunter. And that got my writer's brain thinking.

         As characters, all five gym members are unique - meaning they are each physically different from the others, and each must have interesting stories to tell. When all five share the same setting, they move around the space with equal aptitude and facility. But it's their visual paradoxes that make the new couple the center of my attention. They are the splashes of red on an all-blue canvas. They are interesting.

         A fictional character that is multi-dimensional or quirky captures our imaginations. Discovering and exploring a character's contradictions, illogicalities, and ironies bring depth and drama to any story. Inspiration for these characters is all around us, and looking for it is almost as enjoyable as crafting the characters and their stories.

         And it sure makes the time on a treadmill fly by!

[I originally published this article today at Writing.com.  Read it HERE. And to enjoy other regular newsletters and a slew of tools for writers, sign up HERE.  Membership is free!]

                                    

Concrete Poem

Just a little concrete poem I wrote a while back.

Hope you enjoy it!

                  The Call of the Whale

My name is Dylan,                                                                      “Lover of the Sea.”
    Or so my mother                                                                hoped I’d always be.
    The palm fronds swayed                                            the day that I was born.
        And sea gulls screeched their                            welcome from the shore.
          A family of simple needs raised            me. Our livelihood was eked out
            from the sea.  From babe to boy,      my playground was the beach;
                Observant ocean never failed to teach.  But I, unwilling student,
                    would not hear and dreamed instead of arid west frontier.
                    Two years of misery in desert quest; I searched for verve
                        but found I was depressed. ‘Neath empty skies and
                          cacti's harsh embrace, the ocean ebbed and
                                  pulled me from that place.  Thalassic
                                          prodigy returned at last, at
                                            ocean’s edge I stood and
                                              viewed my past: I was
                                              the whale compelled
                                                to breathe fresh air,
                                                  an orcan idealist
                                                  lunged, unaware.
  In reckless flight I'd faced a basic fact. A  whale lives under
     contract most exact. I’m from the sea and  it’s a part of me;
                  My salty tears were proof and guarantee.









Have a wonderful day!

                                    

On Submission...again

Image snagged from Source

I spent the afternoon revising and spit-shining a short story for submission. It's amazing how much easier the editing process is when you've put the project aside for a couple months.

I hadn't reread this particular story since early spring when I submitted it to a literary magazine called Independent Ink. That market generally takes 120 days to notify authors of acceptance or rejection, although they state on the website that if the story is of interest to them but not right for the issue they're currently preparing, they may take longer to announce the acceptance, to coincide with the issue it will appear in. I've now been waiting to hear a 'yay' or 'nay' for 139 days...A good sign or not, I can't guess.

At any rate, I decided to submit the story to other markets. If it is accepted someplace else, I'll withdraw it from Independent Ink's consideration.

I hadn't forgotten what the story was about, but I had become distant enough from it to enjoy it as a reader would. I wasn't skimming the words like I did when it was well-rehearsed in my writer's brain. I actually read it.

And, naturally, I found places where a tweak was in order. After some minor adjustments that, I think, strengthened the flow and overall emotional impact of the story, I sent it off. I don't think I'll ever get over the nervous, flip-flopping jitters I feel when I push the "Submit" button. It's a gulp from a big glass of exhilarating terror. Makes me sort of drunk, every time.

Now I have to settle in for another 90-day wait, on average. Plenty of time for cramps to take hold of my tightly crossed fingers. Going to try to put it out of my mind and just write.

Just write.

Just.Write.

 

                                    

Facing the Fear

On a warm spring day this year, my daughter opened a canvas camping chair and settled in to read a book in the shade of our small front porch. That evening, instead of hauling the chair back to the garage like she should have, she pulled up on the four corners of the chair back and seat front, collapsing the chair up into a vertical bundle. She stood it in the corner next to the front door and then went into the house.

A week later, we noticed the nest.

A mama Bewick's Sparrow had discovered the hammock-y nook that the seat bottom created, sheltered on all sides by folds of stiff canvas. She'd deemed it the perfect spot to nest, and before long we spied six speckled eggs atop a bed of woven twigs and straw.

Try as we did, remembering to use an alternate exit from the house proved difficult, and the regular traffic of neighborhood kids ringing the doorbell in search of playmates increased with the lengthening days. Each time someone drew near, Mama Sparrow took panicked, sputtering flight, several times smacking into the porch eaves in her haste to flee.

Then one day, she just never returned. Without her attention, the abandoned eggs succumbed to the elements, their precious contents surrendering to the chilly spring air.

As a novelist I am like that Mama Sparrow. I build a story nest. I outline on paper, weaving character sketches with plot points, constructing something tangible from the ideas floating in the quiet safety of my imagination. A new project excites me; it consumes my waking thoughts. As I wash the dishes, the characters speak. When I fold the laundry, scenes play out. Driving the car, I see setting landscapes rise on the horizon of my mind. All the eggs are laid. Nothing left to do but roost and write.

Something happens to me at this point in the project. I get spooked. I stare at the blank screen. I begin the first chapter, but wind up scratching the first scene. I start over with a different character, or put him in a different room, outdoors, three days before, one month later...

I give myself time off. Sometimes, I'm told, stepping back from the project gets the creative fires burning again. I try anew, and the same thing happens. I jump back again in panicked, sputtering flight.

And I've learned that when I flee often enough, the fragile ideas sense impeding abandonment. They cool off and perish, like unattended eggs in a nest.

For whatever reason, I don't struggle this way with my short fiction. And I question whether I'm just being stubborn in my desire to write a novel. Then I recognize, again, the fear lingering in-between the words in that sentence. The urge for flight is strong, but my love for writing and faith in the process must be stronger. 

And the moral of this story is this: Story ideas, like any artistic inspiration, must be acted upon in the heat of that initial, stimulating enthusiasm. How many times have you been driving down the road and a brilliant idea for a character comes to you? And how many times have you later gone to your computer to write about her, and her essence has evaporated from your mind like mist in morning sunlight? Writers can't put off inspiration. Not for a busy schedule, not for lack of sleep, and certainly not for fear.

[The above article was originally published on June 15, 2011 in my monthly newsletter at Writing.com.]

As I face my fears and embark on my second attempt at a full-length novel, I wish all of you the same inspiration and perseverance for your current writing endeavors that I'm beckoning for mine.  Write on, friends!