In the past five years, well, since I started writing fiction, I have read, skimmed, even studied many books on writing. There are several that I have found to be helpful–i.e.WRITING THE BREAKOUT NOVEL by Donald Maass. But, generally speaking, I find most books on writing to be dull and overly complicated. This week, I bought a book called FROM THE INSIDE OUT. It’s by Susan May Warren and Rachel Hauck whom I happen to know through ACFW–both award winning, multi-published authors (and really nice ladies). But they didn’t tell me about their book, my agent did. He thought it might help me think through a few holes in a story I’ve been working on and WOW, he was right. This is an easy to read, very practical, very accessible approach to story building. Honestly, the most useful book I’ve come across. It’s only $15 if you download it onto your computer from their MY BOOK THERAPY website. I highly recommend you check it out…

Happy Writing

Tags: books, novels, rachel hauck, susan may warren, Writing
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The Help by Kathryn Stockett

My neighborhood book club chose this novel to read and although I haven’t done a review in a while I wanted to say a few words about The Help. First of all, it’s well done. I love her voices. Amazing and unique. She really does a fabulous job of capturing the three very different personalities. I also thought she got the League thing down pretty well and the general historical references are very clear and take you back the fifty years. But what makes the book is the fabulous subject matter–one near and dear to my own heart as I had a maid as a very young child growing up in the South.

If I had to be really negative I would criticize the ending. So much build up to what could have been an exciting finish and, well, frankly I was disappointed. Something wrong with the pacing and the closure in my opinion. I sometimes like a book that leaves you with possibilities but this didn’t work as well as it could have. Regardless, it’s a very good read–and I think a “must read” if you grew up in the deep South.

Tags: reviews, The Help
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We’re completely snowed in here. The world is white and beautiful. It snowed all day yesterday. And with the temperatures still so low doesn’t look like we’ll be going anywhere soon. We spent today and yesterday getting together with neighbors and kicking back and just doing nothing for a while… Also, had some extra time to write which is always nice. I looked over my calendar, too, and realized that it was time to finally commit to some serious goals for myself.

I avoided making any New Year’s resolution this year because life is so atypical over the holidays. I knew I’d come up with goals that didn’t necessarily reflect where I wanted to go. But, now things have settled down a bit and it’s time.

At the ACFW conference last fall in Denver, Debbie Macomber spoke about setting goals, both long term and short term goals, and its importance in reaching achievements. I thought what she said made a lot of sense. You can’t get much done if you don’t set out to do anything. Debbie talked about making 5 and 10 year goals, both career and personal, and then in terms of lifetime goals–those things that you really want to accomplish or that you really feel called to do.

I think tonight before I work on my latest story I’m going to do what Debbie suggested and write down:

5 things I want to get done this week

5 things I want to get done this year

5 things I want to accomplish in the next 5-10 years

and 5 things I want to accomplish at some point in my life…

And I’m going to be specific. I’m not going to write that I want to be more organized. I’m going to set a goal that says I will do “this certain thing” in order to be organized. For example, I’m going to run more, but instead of writing “run more” I’m going to write that I want be able to run a 5k by this spring. I think being specific will not only help me know clearly whether or not I’ve met the goal but it will also make it easier to stay on track in achieving it.

Tags: ACFW, goals
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