Carol:
Yesterday I visited with kids in New York. This morning I visited with readers in Arizona. What a crazy world we live in, where I can chat with someone in Australia AND in Malaysia and later meet with the people who have read my books. Speaking of books, we’ll have a new blogger join us. Some Fridays will be Book Review Day–at least every other week. Not sure if we’ll have something tomorrow as I just asked Hallie Miller to help us out and I’m excited to see what she does for us.
Brenda:
List 5 of the toughest challenges you’ve every had to face.
Give at least one of those challenges to a character you’re writing about.
How will s/he overcome in the struggle?
Give at least one of those challenges to a character you’re writing about.
How will s/he overcome in the struggle?
Or will s/he fail?
What are the consequences of that triumph or that failure?
How will they color the ending of your book/story?
What are the consequences of that triumph or that failure?
How will they color the ending of your book/story?
What is the “take-away” for your reader?
Cheryl:
I love Halloween, partly because I really love dressing up and it’s one of the only socially acceptable times to do it!
I also love to think about what really scares us. For instance, I’m afraid of spiders. But am I afraid of their bites? Their eyes? Their legs? The way they move? Would I be more afraid of one giant spider or a thousand tiny spiders? Would it be worse to have one in my hair or in my mouth? Why?
Are you thoroughly disgusted yet? Good! What are you scared of? Why? What is the most terrifying aspect to you? Getting to the core of what scares you is the basis of good horror writing. When you deconstruct fear, you can pull out the best pieces and use them to scare your reader in a new, non-cliche way.
Throwing Up Words 