Off the Cuff / My Blog Book (Book) http://www.Writing.Com/main/profile.php/blog/joycag In one of the recent Dr. Oz's shows -I don't know which since I follow them from the DVR tapings-, a psychiatrist asked this question to overweight ladies. I thought the question was excellent for most anyone to ask himself or herself. Not only that though, for us writers, it is a good question to ask to every character we create. Let me repea...[Read Full Post] Wed, 08 Feb 2012 19:20:45 EST http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/746661 Writing.com has an official contest [Link To Item #597313] , which asks about our new year's resolutions. This is a wonderful encouragement to writers because just to mull over the idea would help any one of us. Chuck Palahniuk, too, asks "Okay writers, it's a new year. What are your 'writing resolutions?" in: [Link: 'http://litreacto...[Read Full Post] Tue, 03 Jan 2012 18:36:39 EST http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/743249 Finally it happened. I dreamt of my muse...compliments of Jane Eyre. Since most everything written nowadays is occult, gore, cheap sex, mayhem, and murder, for my bedtime reading, I decided to go back to my teenage favorite, Jane Eyre. Last night, the second night I was reading, I dreamt of my muse, a tall thin wiry guy whose energy far su...[Read Full Post] Tue, 27 Dec 2011 13:40:11 EST http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/742632 Finally it happened. I dreamt of my muse...compliments of Jane Eyre. Since most everything written nowadays is occult, gore, cheap sex, mayhem, and murder, for my bedtime reading, I decided to go back to my teenage favorite, Jane Eyre. Last night, the second night I was reading, I dreamt of my muse, a tall thin wiry guy whose energy far su...[Read Full Post] Tue, 27 Dec 2011 13:49:51 EST http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/742631 About five or six days ago, I cooked a dish of pinto beans. After the dish was cooked, I found a single bean that had fallen on the kitchen floor. On an impulse, not wanting to throw it in the garbage, I stuck it in a pot of soil on the sill in front of the kitchen window where I keep African Violets. I had placed that pot of soil on the sill to use it l...[Read Full Post] Sun, 11 Dec 2011 12:42:03 EST http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/741525 What I miss in the English language I learn from CNBC. Just a few minutes ago, the speaker, one of the young regulars on the CNBC's roster, said--more or less--that the subject at hand is uber local and there is more life to US than on this side (meaning the eastern side) of the Mississippi. That makes it uber local, I guess. Uber local, meaning nat...[Read Full Post] Wed, 30 Nov 2011 14:28:44 EST http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/740758 I can't believe I finished my NaNo novel. It happened, thanks to the [Link To Item #1474311] here in WdC. In the beginning of the month, I fell back because I got busy with other things. Then I panicked, thinking I'd never see the end of this book. So I went at it. There was a day when I wrote 4000 words, unhe...[Read Full Post] Sat, 26 Nov 2011 11:27:41 EST http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/740436 I am so proud of WdC writer-friends whose books I read because they have the best self-published books without any glaring flaws. It was, however, not so where other books were concerned. Ever since I started reading self-published books on my Kindle, I began to appreciate more, a lot more, the value of good editors. Unless a writer has the eyes of a...[Read Full Post] Thu, 29 Sep 2011 13:51:01 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/735267 "The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires." William A. Ward While I believe most teachers do inspire already, may all of them strive to do so. Now that a school year has just started or is about to start, depending on where you live, a...[Read Full Post] Fri, 19 Aug 2011 15:56:24 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/731970 No, I don't think so. I think it is more alive than ever. Only it has taken different forms and different media and devices. I just finished reading The Lost Art of Reading by David L. Ulin. In the beginning of the book, the author tries to motivate his son to read. The son rejects reading and when asked why, he says it is because literatur...[Read Full Post] Tue, 16 Aug 2011 00:06:48 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/731611 Each time I start a new writing project, I feel like a first-time writer, no matter how many years I have lived and how many years I have written. So, since you asked for it, take what I am going to say with a grain of salt. Here's a very rough list: 1. Learn to write clearly. If you think what you have written sounds vague to you, go back an...[Read Full Post] Wed, 10 Aug 2011 13:03:47 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/731162 No kidding! I should know. I've been here ten years, and I haven't graduated yet. I hope I never will. Anyhow, what brought all this on was a chance encounter at Barnes and Noble's. Yesterday, I was looking through the books near the dictionaries where the writing stuff is. Two young women, who surmised I knew something or other, prob...[Read Full Post] Thu, 04 Aug 2011 17:02:28 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/730689 For the email-charter, The Subversive Copy Editor (CSE) says: it's "noncommercial, nonfat and gluten-free." I agree. After all, I have her book and follow her blog because what she says helps me greatly. And I do love E-Mail compared to what I used to struggle with--that is: snail mail--between the time I ...[Read Full Post] Wed, 27 Jul 2011 11:39:50 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/729844 I learned a lot from John Truby's teaching. This morning, I came across one of his articles online, I thought would benefit us all, whether we want to sell to Hollywood or not. The article's title is 10 Story Techniques You Must Use to Sell Your Script. His ten techniques are: 1. Know the 10 most popular genres (Action, Comedy, Cri...[Read Full Post] Tue, 19 Jul 2011 13:58:39 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/729081 Last night, I finished reading The Writing of the Short Story by Lewis Worthington Smith, A.M, a teacher from Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa. The copyright date of the book was 1902. Can you believe! I read the book on Kindle, which is also free online, because curiosity killed the kitten, and I wanted to see what people thought about writ...[Read Full Post] Wed, 13 Jul 2011 15:51:27 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/728569 I love quotes. They are full of ideas, scenes, and situations. I also like answering the quotes as if they are directed at me. No, not a big-head syndrome, it%u2019s only an exercise. Here are a few: %u201CChange everything, except your loves.%u201D Voltaire We change money, jobs, clothes, partners, where we live, who we talk to,...[Read Full Post] Sun, 10 Jul 2011 19:40:46 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/728367 If this is not a revolution, I don't know what is. Although I haven't read a HP book and neither finished watching any of the movies, I am excited, in my old age, about this because JK Rowling is making a popular reading phenomenon available for everyone and making it interactive. Surely, the publishing business is changing its colors agai...[Read Full Post] Thu, 23 Jun 2011 10:48:17 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/726904 I just finished reading Moldavian Moon Book One: The Wolf's Torment by our very own [Link To User sgcardin] . I found the novel to be absolutely spectacular. Steph made me care for all her characters, especially the antagonist who turned a villain through no fault of his own, and she introduced the many characters in the book without overwhelming th...[Read Full Post] Fri, 17 Jun 2011 18:14:33 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/726470 I sometimes watch silly videos. This video is about how the people at the New Yorker process ideas. If you, like me, have a problem with choosing the many ideas that bombard our brains, watching the New Yorker staff sweat over the stuff may make it a bit more fun. [Link: 'http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/06/talk...[Read Full Post] Wed, 15 Jun 2011 16:41:38 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/726292 Since I can't post a review for E-Books in Product Reviews of Writing.com, I am going to post my E-Book Reviews in my blog. I won Sherri's book Surrender to Fear in a raffle, Lucky, Lucky, Lucky! And Congrats, Sherri! Here's the review I sent to a few article sites. You have to read the book to find out what happens at the...[Read Full Post] Fri, 17 Jun 2011 18:43:15 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/726053