Darswords

Written with Tracy Rydzy, MSW, LSW

In a moment of frustration I (Tracy) posted this on my Facebook page dedicated to Chronic Pain, Tracy Rydzy- Oh What a Pain:

Sometimes I wonder, when something comes up that is difficult to accept or hurtful or upsetting because of living with chronic pain, do people try to be jerks about it or are they really too stupid to understand?

One of the pages’ followers, Cassandra, responded with her opinion and I think it will resonate with many readers. We co-wrote the following article:

When you live with chronic pain, it often feels that no one understands how difficult life is and people sometimes make comments that end up being hurtful. There are three key reasons why people say things or act in a careless or hurtful manner when it comes to dealing with chronic illness issues.

The first reason could be…

Last weekend I taught at the Crested Butte Writing Conference in Colorado. Amazing conference with fantastic presenters (highly recommend) and though it was memorable and magical…I thought it would KILL me.

It Didn’t Begin Well…

I am NOT a fan of early morning flights. Even though I had everything packed and ready to go, I wake up WHEN?

3:00 a.m.

…and CANNOT get back to sleep.

So I get up, do some work and have plenty of time to get to the airport. I figure, “Eh *waves hand* I’m not presenting today, so I will just go to bed early.”

I finally get to Gunnison, Colorado, my ride picks me and the other presenters up. She’s already scouted out a restaurant that had gluten-free and dairy-free food. YAY, ME!

The Assassin-wich

Whenever I go to different regions, I make it a point to try what’s local. I ordered the Trout…

As I promised yesterday in my post about my scumbag brain and how I don’t write down good ideas, today’s post is about two different types of editing: editing for content/cohesion, and editing for flow.

I want to talk first about how they’re different, and why editing for flow should be one of your last concerns, reserved for the final phases of producing reader-readiness.

Editing for Content and Cohesion

Editing for content and cohesion really go together. When you edit for content, you make sure your content is right. (WHAT??? Who could have seen that one coming?)

• You don’t have plot holes
• Your characters are developed and, as far as you can identify at the phase you’re at, all needed scenes are present and accounted for.
• All the background info that you can imagine your readers will need is somewhere in the work.

Editing for content is largely editing…

Having so much fun giving away copies of Proximity for free on Smashwords, and now it’s double the fun…Proximity is FREE for Kindle too! Head on over to Amazon to pick up a copy…and I’d love some help spreading the word too!

A special thanks to Bookfabulous Designs for the awesome graphic you see up at the top of this post! And to the wonderful ladies at Girls *Heart* Books Tours for all their help in spreading the word about the Proximity series! ❤ Love ya!

Vitality is coming July 16th!  So excited!

Lately, Brave New World has become one of the hottest selling novels, and many of us have become even more suspicious of that white panel van that passes our homes daily. Sure it has ice-cream and plays tinkly music, but that cover is so thin Stevie Wonder could see right through it.

After the whole Edward Snowden whistle-blowing debacle, the Obama Administration and the Intelligence community have been up to their ears in hot water and bad press. Spying on regular citizens with no cause or warrant? Invading privacy and throwing the 4th Amendment out the window? Reading our e-mails? Monitoring our Internet? Those activities are just the sort that create an image problem.

Thus, sources tell me (sources being the voices in my head) that, in order to get back in the good graces of the American public, the current administration has decided to appoint Santa to head…

Here’s a thing. Whilst I’ve been attending to things other than blogging, for a variety of good and not-so good reasons, I’ve discovered something interesting. When I have a task that I don’t want to do, my unconscious mind does everything in its power to make it a difficult as possible to do undertake the task. Now, I used to think of this as procrastination, I’ve procrastinated all my life, putting things off until the last possible moment and then working away like someone who’s working hard to win the hard working competition by working harder than a hard worker would normal work when working hard. And so on. But perhaps there’s more to it than that.

You see, I’m just that little bit more self-aware than I used to be and I reckon that I actually run two types of procrastinatory algorithms in my library of mental sub-routines. You…

Telling sentences begin like this:  I stand…  Sara looks around…  He waits with a…   We wish …   I sit here…Bob looks to the …

These are forms of you the writer telling the reader about the character. We can hear you saying these words. Your voice is at the forefront.

That may be fine for one line of narration. But to slip into scenes that show you  have to make a shift in your writing.  A writer’s voice needs to fade into the background. She needs to narrate her story from there.