A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

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This is a hard to swallow quote for those of us who write and sell words. But it was someone just like us who, allegedly,  first uttered this now timeless catchy phrase. In 1927, newspaper journalist Fred R. Barnard, shared this quote to express the need for a photo to accompany important articles and ads. And the principle has never been more vital than in today’s digitally cluttered cyberspace. I asked one friend of mine, author, Linda Goldfarb, if I could share a few of her personality-packed photos to give all of us authors, speakers, bookstore owners, a fresh way…

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Verbs

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Bob Hostetler here, offering another prayer for writers:   I write today, Lord. I will be using words, and some of them will be verbs. Inspire them all, God, but especially the verbs. Hover over them. Speak them into existence. Breathe into them the breath of life. All my verbs come from you. You are my “is.” My “am.” My “see,” my “know.” You are my “laugh” and “cry,” my “wake” and “sleep,” “shiver” and “sweat,” “think” and “speak,” “jump” and “skip” and “dance” and “bounce.” There is not an action in my day, a movement of my bones, a…

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Why?

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Greetings from Ava Pennington in sunny Florida. I’ve always been a curious person, and today I’d like to start with a question or two… Why do we write? Why do we market our books?

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Finding and Writing a Character’s Voice: Lessons from Playwriting

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     Hello, again! Maureen Pratt here with my monthly blogpost about the craft of writing. Today, I'm going to focus on techniques to employ to find and write distinctive voices for each of your characters or individuals in fiction or non-fiction.     I began my professional writing career as a playwright, earning my Master of Fine Arts in Theater Arts with a concentration in playwriting from UCLA and later having a number of plays produced. Unlike writing for the movies, playwriting "runs" on dialogue. A professional script for live theater contains very little, if any, description except to set the scene, and…

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