Thoughts on Writing (The Requirements of an Author)

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Am I still so harsh? It appears so.

Excerpt from Getting Me Back

getting me back

Thoughts on Writing (The Requirements of an Author)

Desire: A congenital need to tell the story.
Determination: It is not enough to walk a couple of blocks or run five miles on a treadmill, come prepared to hike the Himalayas and explore the abyss.
An exoskeleton: A thick skin will not suffice — no indeed. Colleagues and critics are apt in the sadistic art of shaving and burning the thickest of flesh; their tireless wheel of pumice leaving the toughest callouses raw and bleeding. They will thin your skin; get beneath it and prove your vulnerabilities. Like a flesh eating bacteria they will consume you — kill you if you let them.
A poker face: Never let them see you sweat.
Gratitude: Because no one owes you anything!
Grace: For the rise and the inevitable fall.
Pills and booze and smoke: Because it is a hard and hateful world and you are not a god-damned ant.

Behind Door Number Four (And Where the Heck is Donald Crowley?)

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I would like to think Donald Crowley would be impressed with this new cover but he (for whatever reason)  is not returning my calls.

Encase you don’t know Don, here’s a little bit about him — or rather his past.

Donald S. Crowley was a CPA by day; a bean counter; a number cruncher and a certified bore. By night he was as stimulating as the hero in his latest read with all the social skills of a brick and to make matters worse he was in love with a door. Not just any door, number four was special. Her alluring smile had caught Donald’s eye when he was just a boy and she called him by name. Despite years of therapy and medications she still called to him. Now he would risk his life to see her again and to finally know what lay behind
Door Number IIII.

Available wherever e-books are sold.

Dear December (Friday’s Free for All)

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The poem that opens A Hard Candy Christmas.

Dear December

I found you – a thin shawl upon nature’s shoulders

resting on the final page of my Gregorian calendar.

Celebrations in red,

Christmas and Kwanza and the tail end of Hanukah.

Reminding me in stark black letters of bombings and declarations of war.

Hitler, Mussolini, and Japan…

Listen to Julia Gayden Nelson's lovely narration 
and/or get the e-book from your favorite retailer.

Welcome to December y’all!

A HARD CANDY XMAS ACX - Copy (1280x1280)

 

The End

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Today is the last day of November and the end of NaNoWriMo.

Crane in Saltgrass end of November

If you are one who has already or will be typing the end today — congratulations!

If you are one who threw in the towel days or weeks ago — it is not the end of the world!

The earth is still in orbit, the sun still rises in the east, the Apocalypse has not occurred (unless I missed it) and if you can pinch yourself then the Messiah has not arrived. Be thankful.

This is not the end.

This is only the beginning.

Write on!!

 

It’s Time to Wrap it Up

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The deadline for NaNoWriMo is fast approaching and Christmas is around the corner — tick-tock… tick-tock…tick-tock… tick-tock Wrap it up

It’s time to wrap it up.

How’s your ending coming along? Are you going to leave us with a cliff hanger and chomping at the bit? Is there a wild twist/turn of events that makes us say Wow!

Will it be a happy ever after (HEA)? Does a character need to die? Will good triumph over evil? Maybe all of the above?

It’s your story, you get to decide how it ends and how you present it to the world.

And just think when you’ve typed The End you can get busy hitting the thrift stores in search of the perfect hideous sweater for your grumpy old aunt you secretly despise.

Write on!!

Cyber Monday Starts NOW!

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Clan Destiny Series BIG savings at Amazon
Amazon Clan Destiny
Clan Destiny Series- take a bite out of the big Apple
Apple

Keep a cyber eye out at Barnes & Noble

B&N

ALL books! Google [don’t] Play 25¢, 33¢, 54¢ and 99¢

google screenshot1

Hoping you all had a blessed Thanksgiving holiday.

We will get back writing about writing later this week but for now The Real Janna Hill has got to pay the [real] bills.

Write on!!

A Pilgrim’s Prayer

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Another Thanksgiving has arrived and another November nears an end which means another revisiting of A Pilgrims Prayer.

A Pilgrim’s Prayer

Once upon a time a long, a long time ago (before Black Friday) Thanksgiving was a celebration of harvest and a time to give thanks. The pumpkin harvest (1024x586)
The early pilgrims did not have the conveniences we enjoy today, yet somehow they survived.

John Wayne public domain image

I didn’t really know any of those pilgrims but I did see a John Wayne movie once.

John knew a pilgrim when he saw one.

He seemed to know a lot of pilgrims but that was a long time ago too.

 

 

 

I propose we are all pilgrims, each one of us on a journey of sorts; our own personal pilgrimage.
We are all looking for something. Be it a quest for self-confirmation, truth, a cure, enrichment, enlightenment, comfort, a friend, a lover, a job, a meal, or a place to lay our weary head at the end of another day.

I believe life is a journey, or at least it should be. PATHS AND PILGRIMS (5) (1024x586)It would be terrible to think we were just flailing through this experience, killing time on this giant floating gumball, while waiting for the next Black Friday specials.

I believe we all have one destination, though we travel many different roads and I trust that we have choices.

Pilgrims (2)

Hopefully we will choose well. On the occasion we take a wrong turn [and we will] I pray we have enough sense and humility to stop and seek direction, to reassess our route and to be considerate in our voyage.

PATHS AND PILGRIMS (15) (1024x653)
So here’s wishing all of you pilgrims a Happy Thanksgiving and may we all, whatever road we’re on, take time to look ahead, pause, and meditate on the many things we have to be grateful for, put aside our grievances and give thanks.

My personal prayer:

I pray our good seeds of hope, humility, toil and courage produce abundantly; that love and kindness grow wild like the weeds of early spring – fruitful and undeterred. And your harvest be rich with wisdom and discernment.