Category Archives: Writing

JCF TV #2: The Most Important Muscle in a Writer’s Body

To Thine Own Writing Be True

It’s been an interesting experience getting The Mushroom Shift ready for publication. I mean, here is a novel I wrote almost 25 years ago, and as I’m reading it, and as I’m having my Kindle read it to me as part of the proofreading process, I’m discovering something about it that I hadn’t expected. It’s [...]

Handwriting is on the Wall

I have just heard the news that cursive writing will no longer be taught in Ohio schools, making it the third state to abandon the skill (behind Indiana and Hawaii). The keyboard is king now, the thinking goes, making unnecessary a discipline that teaches manual dexterity at the fine motor level. In these modern times [...]

Oh, Fudge!

Where to come down on the idea of cussin’ in one’s books? I’ve gotten away from it for the most part, mostly because I’m a Christian and try hard not to use it myself. But I’ve also sat through enough TV versions of films where the language is softened, and for the most part the [...]

5 Ways to Create Red Herrings in a Mystery Novel (via Global Mysteries)

If you’re an aspiring mystery writer, or an aspiring writer in general, you should make Nancy Curteman’s Global Mysteries blog a regular stop on your social media rounds. She has great topics, posts more regularly than I do, and doesn’t dither like me. Here’s her latest, another ball knocked out of the park. Red herrings [...]

Exclamation Point Points

After thirty years of my wife insisting, I am now reading Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean Auel. And it’s a wondrous thing. For a first novel, Auel created a rich world based on sound (at the time) scientific speculation, bent the rules within acceptable parameters, expertly manipulated plot twists and turns for maximum [...]

The Cliff’s Notes Version of How to Be a Writer

A lot of my posts come from questions I get from aspiring writers struggling with some part of the writing process or another. The other day I got an email peppered with questions I had mostly already answered. However, it occurred to me that there might be others out there who, like this particular reader, [...]

Horror, Suspense, and Sloppiness

I haven’t succumbed to memery in quite a while, but there’s one going around Facebook right now that gives me some excellent blog fodder, so here we go. This latest invites us to, in honor of impending Halloween, to name our 10 favorite horror movies. When I was first tagged I thought, I can’t do [...]

Breaking the Rules

Okay, I’ve been writing about Writer’s Rules on and off since firing up this blog in 2002. What about when the time comes to break the rules? Depends on what rules you break. For example, I’m planning a novel in which nobody gets killed. For me that’s a definite leap forward. I’ve got one friend [...]

Why I Don’t Do NaNoWriMo

Well, tomorrow it begins. All over the nation, nay, the world, word processors will fire up as literary aspirants everywhere prepare to do battle with themselves during NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month – the solitaire sporting event in which folks try to complete a 50,000 word novel during the 30 days of November. And [...]

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