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▣ Holiday Melancholia

posted by Saundra Akers on November 30th, 2009 at 7:54 AM

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Everyone seems to become more sensitive during the holidays and if something is wrong, it feels much more wrong at that time than at any other time. Depression looms large when you've no one to share your life with and if you don't have much money it's easy to think there is nothing you can do to brighten your holidays.

That isn't True!

 

I like the idea of lonely people banding together to share the season like a family would. It may not be ideal but it can be special. Some recreation centers and senior centers have parties ect and are cheap to join but for those who this won't work for, there are still options. A friend of mine recently lamented that he had no car, no money, and his family wasn't even getting together this year for a celebration because they couldn't afford it. I made some of the following suggestions to him as well as some other ideas more personal to his situation.

 

Christmas is magic...don't forget it but let the magic reach out to and envelope you. Santa Clause is a spirit if not a man.

 

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▣ Characters, how to make their lives miserable

posted by Saundra Akers on October 20th, 2009 at 7:42 AM

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At Bouchercon, we learned that not only do we have to give our characters trouble but we have to keep laying it on and making it worse. Taht is the way to increase the tension. There was also discussion about how to make the character have more depth and I'm trying to pass on this invaluable information to you.

 

Also, for those who are following this blog to look for prompts for their memoirs; Write about money. How did it impact you over your life, who told you what about it, what are your current beliefs about it? Are you a risk taker or conservative? What are you thinking about the current situation where the government is printing money so fast it's causing our dollar to fall and probably eventually fail? Is money important to you or do you consider it of lesser importance than other things?

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▣ Expanding your Character

posted by Saundra Akers on October 19th, 2009 at 8:35 AM

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In this writing I'm fresh back from a writing convention with a lot of new ideas. I hope they will help others as well.

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▣ A short piece, maybe a novel's beginning????

posted by Saundra Akers on October 13th, 2009 at 11:04 AM

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This is a short piece that I did once as a five minute writing. At the time I had the idea of it being a beginning to a story or a novel. I don't have much time to write this time due to the fact that I'm going to the Boucheran conference in Indianapolis leaving tomorrow. I'll write when I get back and hopefully I'll have some interesting things to share. Michael Connelly is the keynote speaker for this conference. I'm going to another conference the following week end and I actually pitched a romance story line to an editor there. I haven't wanted to do romance but I do want to explore all the areas of writing that are available...so I guess I might eventually end up writing a romance.

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