101 Years of Music

When my great-grandmother passed away in 2015, I wanted to do something to commemorate her extraordinary life. She was born during WWI and was 14 at the start of the Great Depression. She was 24-30 years old during WWII. She was 84 when I was born and on the 29th of...

Character Development: Top 20 Traits

Good morning, friends, and welcome to Character Development 102! If you haven’t read “The Perfect Name” (Character Development 101) yet, check this out first. I had a lot of fun writing it, and I think you’ll like it, too. Derived from James Patterson’s system of...

Winter Will Be: A Short Story

I hated running, which is the only reason I stood there while he blew up. “Don’t give me that look, Samantha,” he said. I barely heard him and didn’t change my expression. He was just lucky I hadn’t found my voice yet. I was up to my knees in ocean by then, thinking...

Inspiration and Excellence

My first short story, written when I was seven years old, was inspired by my love for horses and Free Willy. The story was a school assignment, but the characters, setting and plot were all my own. The words flowed from the tip of my pencil like water. Writing was...

Character Development: The Perfect Name

I recently asked my Twitter followers what sorts of posts they would like to read on this blog, and I was thrilled when one of them suggested the topic of character development. This post goes out to him and anyone else who’s interested in this—one of my favorite...

Dear Kindred Spirit

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