What Are You Afraid Of? I was reading a thriller book a while back and there were a few scenes dealing with snakes that made my skin crawl. No, not in the creepy crawly way you’re thinking of, but in shock that a writer would put such nonsense in a book. All it would have […]
I’ve been on a kick lately to get to the bottom of sayings. After last week’s column I thought I’d tackle a couple of tougher ones. Let’s start with one close to my heart: See Naples and Die. Vedi Napoli e poi Muori “See Naples and die.“ It was a phrase coined during the reign […]
This was originally posted on Jackie Burris’ blog, Housewife Blues and Chihuahua Stories. It was part of the Paws With a Cause bloggers fundraiser. And it’s been fun. If you’re fond of animal stories, stop by and check them out. When Jackie asked me to write something about one of my animals, I thought…sure, that’ll be […]
Coffee Dog I had no idea what I was going to write about this week, then, as I was going through my morning ritual of fixing coffee, it suddenly hit me. I was going to write about Gracie, one of our less-demanding animals. I realized I had never even thought of doing a blog on […]
We Will Miss You We lost a lot of good friends at the sanctuary this year. Yes, we have a lot of animals left—46—but that doesn’t take away from the ones we lost. I wrote about a few of them in these posts: Luigi in Everything Has A Purpose, Cool Pig, in Toughest Decision of […]
What My Animals Teach Me About Writing. There are thousands of books for sale that offer advice on writing, but I don’t buy any of them. I have all the advice I need right here on the animal sanctuary. There is nothing like several dozen animals to teach you about…well…damn near anything. It seems like […]
What Color Are You? It’s amazing in these enlightened times that I have to ask this question, but I do. I don’t mean are you white, or black, or brown, or any shade in between? We all know that doesn’t matter. Right? …Right? So let’s get to the real issue. What color are you—on the […]
Dante and Luigi Have you ever been reading the book and you wondered why a particular character was in there? One of the most important things in writing is to make sure that each character has a purpose. You can’t just put characters in to fill space; they have to have a reason for being […]
Sometimes You Have to Lie to Make Your Writing Believable My first book was published in April, and in late May I got emails from a few readers. Two of them said how much they loved the book, but they found it difficult to believe that six-year-old kids would have been smoking. Everything else they […]
Writing Erotica I have always tried to keep my posts “G-rated,” but with all the excitement over Fifty Shades of Grey and the landslide of books following it, I felt I had to do something drastic. Keep in mind, this character is not me. I swear. Temptation I was feeling a little down, and quite lazy […]
