The Final Touch

Is any­one out there work­ing on writ­ing a novel? I’d love to hear about it!

I haven’t writ­ten a novel myself, but I love read­ing them. Some of my favorite authors are Jodi Picoult,

James Pat­ter­son,

John Grisham,

and Lynn Austin.

When you get fully engaged in a book, you’re not stop­ping every few min­utes to pon­der what makes the book so good. But you would notice if it weren’t so engaging.

That’s why the arti­cle, “How to Edit Your Dia­logue,” by a mem­ber of the Writer’s Digest com­mu­nity of blog­gers caught my eye. I thought I’d pass it along for the sake of any of you who might also be interested.

Even if you’re not a fic­tion writer, you might find it inter­est­ing to see just why you like to read the fic­tion you do, and what the author’s use of dia­logue has to do with that.

By the way, would you please share your favorite authors/books in a com­ment below? I’m always game for some new read­ing mate­r­ial!

photo © 2009 AASU Arm­strong Uni­ver­sity Archives | more info (via: Wylio)

My lit­tle guy earned him­self deten­tion today.

Yup. In kindergarten.

I’ve never had a kid get deten­tion before, but some­how I thought if it did hap­pen, it would be in, say, fourth or fifth or sixth or sev­enth grade. Or maybe eleventh… you know, for skip­ping class or something.

Nope. Kinder­garten. For punch­ing a fel­low kinder­gart­ner in the face. Read the rest of this entry »

photo © 2008 McKay Sav­age | more info (via: Wylio)

First of all, I’d like to extend a warm wel­come to those of you who have recently stum­bled upon and signed on as fol­low­ers of this blog. I am hon­ored to have you along! Please feel free to intro­duce your­selves in a com­ment, if you wish — same goes for my “older” followers/visitors — and/or to post your own thoughts about some­thing I’ve said. I’d love to hear from you!

Speak­ing of friends “old” and “new”… Read the rest of this entry »