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Browsing Tag: Writing

New Year, New Outlook, New Genre (…plus contest finals, huzzah!)

Something you should know about me: I’m always up for an adventure. Whether it’s traveling to a new place, trying my hand at a new hobby, or hopping in the car and seeing where the road takes me, I figure life’s too short to stay in your comfort zone. So earlier this year, when…

Loving the Elusive Em-Dash

Hold onto your hamburgers, folks, because I’m about to nerd-out—hard. I wasn’t always a punctuation nerd. My eighth grade English teacher nearly murdered any love I had for reading or language or writing with the absolutely dreaded, still-to-this-day confounding—wait for it—sentence diagram. Who else suffered through endless hours of drawing out…

Writers, Kill Your Darlings: 5 Tips to Help You Cut Beloved Scenes

Every writer has heard the advice—“kill your darlings” or some variation thereof (“kill your babies”/”murder your darlings”). When I first came across the phrase, I took it to mean “cut your words.” Pshaw, I do that all the time, I thought. Heck, I just edited a paragraph down from…

THE HUSTLER is a Daphne Finalist!

I almost didn’t answer my phone this morning when a call came in from an unfamiliar New Jersey number. Almost. Curiosity got the better of me though, and thank goodness it did. The call was from Marnee Blake, a contest coordinator from the RWA Kiss of Death chapter, letting me know that THE HUSTLER is a finalist in…

Springing Up to Say Hello

Hi there, folks! I figured it’s about time that I poked my head out of the hole I’ve been hiding in since February and rejoined the world. For me, the stretch of year between February and early April is the absolute pits. The holidays are over and the festive spirit is dead. It’s still cold, particularly where…

Finding Courage Outside Your Comfort Zone

Everyone loves their comfort zone. Why? Because that’s the point: you’re comfortable. It’s a wearing-your-favorite-sweatpants, sipping-your-favorite-wine, reading-a-book-by-your-favorite-author kind of feeling (aka, my usual Friday night). Familiar. Safe. Boring. Making the most out of life means taking deliberate steps to leave your comfort zone. Is…

2017: Resolutions, Out. Goals, In.

Every January, the same question is offered up as fodder in daily small-talk: “What’s your New Year’s resolution?” But what if, like me, you don’t do resolutions? Not that I have anything against them. I’ve made resolutions in the past—I’m going to lose 20 pounds…

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