Before the bananas ripe

let's meet at least once

lest the fog dampen passion

let's water our love

the sun is bright this morning 

and night's promising

let's meet and unfreeze winter

of years, drink some wine

restore warmth of faith and hope

and heal the breaches

without black goggles for seeing

let's  meet at least once

From: YOU CAN'T SCENT ME AND OTHER…

One of my clients asked me this question. This may seem like a dumb question, but it’s worth discussing so as to help writers who are new to the game. Short answer: The god of fiction has not prescribed the length of a scene. A scene should be as long as it needs to be in order to accomplish its goal. Each scene should be planned before the writing begins. The plan must begin with establishing its purpose. The scene should incorporate at least one of these purposes:

•…

A Twisted Shade Of Green series, book one "Portrayal Of Lust and Revenge", is now at amazon.com, …

If we are going to understand what contemporary poetry is, we need to clearly define our terms and understand what we mean by them. In searching this out, I found one reference that put it quite well:

By definition of its namesake, contemporary poetry is considered poetry written within our lifetime, and includes poems written approximately from the mid-20th century to the present day. The various types of contemporary poetry do not differ so much from each other as…

I AM ME…

Since starting Thayer Literary Services, a book editing business, in 1997 and after reading what seems like a gazillion first novels, I have seen the same mistakes over and over again. After a while I started calling them “the usual suspects.” I have considered collecting them into a book, but I thought that seeing so many of…

First off, thank you Indie Writer’s Support for giving me this opportunity to air my dirty laundry, well not all of it. I’ll save something for next time.

           Every writer’s journey is fraught with humorous anecdotes, stumbles, pitfalls, and miracles. Yes, it is a journey that perfectly mirrors this adventure we call life, and just like life, you better hold on tight, because as the country western lyric says it’s going to be “one Hell of a ride”.

           I have…

For those of you who already know the answer to the question at hand, I applaud you. 

But there are a few who might be wondering why, in fact, one would ever worry about editing. Two schools of thought rally around this subject. Some of you might be thinking one or both of the following:

1. Who needs an editing service? For God’s sake, I could edit the local newspaper in my sleep. I’ve got this, people!
2. Why should I bother with editing? That doesn't…

It is a writer’s worst fear – what they call ‘writer’s block’. Being frozen when you intend to work on your project. The idea that the well has officially dried up. Perhaps you encountered a deadline and just went blank because of the strain. Or, out of the blue, you cannot find the urge to write. Unfortunately, sometimes it’s not exactly temporary.

The truth is that this is one of those moments every writer simply doesn’t relish. Sure, we can try to be reasonable and say…ah,…

Life can get pretty crazy sometimes. Just when it seems normal, then there’s a curveball which knocks you completely off that axis you got so comfortable with. And, more often than not, life gets in the way of writing. About when you’re ready to sit down to the task and focus, something comes up. There’s an emergency, or maybe not. Life happens. The kids need to be driven somewhere. Before you know it, a whole day has flown by and you’re not only exhausted from the ride, you’re disappointed…

This topic is really big right now. Any writer or reader familiar with books coming out these days has probably noticed a huge trend in shorter fiction. Short stories, novellas, even episodic or chapter-length works are releasing all of the time on Amazon and other book sellers. And it appears that there are two schools of thought in response.

One is comprised of a group of writers and readers who see no issues with shorter fiction. In fact, they encourage it! 

Writers enjoy…

Being an author is hard. One must not only write books, but also take on different roles. They have to be editors, marketers, bloggers, advisers, and the list goes on. In the publishing journey, a writer learns that very few things are for free, or at least affordable. 

Book trailers are a great tool in promoting your own work. You can not only tie them to your Youtube channel, but also link them to author interviews or even press releases. They can really come in handy,…

If you’ve ever self-published or considered it at least, it probably crossed your mind that a good book cover would probably help to “sell” the book. It’s true that presentation is everything; how the sales page appears with the book description and the cover are extremely important. Often, if the book cover isn’t up to par, some readers won’t take an author seriously. The cover is half the battle in marketing. The rest, well the rest is how you reach your audience. But, that’s a topic of…

I wanted to come in and talk about a specific topic. I get so many people, mostly aspiring writers, reaching out to me for advice and the one question I see the most is…

“What should I do next?”

In other words, the writers believe they have exhausted their options. Or maybe they simply haven’t read up on that particular subject. But, there is a moment, I think, in every writer’s career in which you don’t know what to do next, what steps to take. This is usually the moment I…

If you are an avid follower of writing blogs, then you know there is a plethora of information, advice to offer. Guest authors have offered tips on writing from the time these blogs first began to grow into what it they have become today. Most aspiring writers know that to look for writing tips on a specific topic (point of view, research, any story elements), it is as simple as doing an internet search. The world is at our fingertips.  

Unfortunately, for some writers,…