by DianneSalerni | Sep 16, 2011 | writing
Every fall, I hit a slump in creativity. There’s no mystery to it: the beginning of a school year takes a lot out of me. There’s a new schedule to learn and new students to get to know, not to mention I’m also a parent of two daughters starting their own busy school...
by DianneSalerni | Aug 17, 2011 | WIP, writing
I see a lot of talk on the blogs about writing characters – especially establishing goals for your characters, putting obstacles in their path, directing your characters like rats in a maze by blocking the path and making them work harder to fight their way...
by DianneSalerni | Aug 15, 2011 | The Practice Room, writing
When I first saw Google+ hitting the news and started getting invitations to join, I groaned. Facebook, yes. Twitter, I’m there. But ANOTHER ONE? I didn’t think I could do it. So, I deleted all the invitations and said, “The social networks stop here.” But then, Tina...
by DianneSalerni | Aug 12, 2011 | summer, writing
One of my teacher friends (I think it was Tracy Litchfield) recently bemoaned August 1st as the death knell of the summer. I agreed. August does to the summer what Sunday evening does to the weekend. Then, of course, one of my parent friends (Michelle Gonnella)...
by DianneSalerni | Jul 15, 2011 | writing
Whether it’s a matter of consciously choosing them, or visualizing my characters and letting them naturally develop, I try to give each of my characters specific mannerisms that belong to them alone. I usually give them more than one, because most of us have more than...
by DianneSalerni | Jul 13, 2011 | writing
It takes months for most of us to write an entire manuscript, and unless you recursively read all your chapters as you go, there might be quite a gap between the writing of Chapter 1 and the writing of Chapter 30. I find that when I go back and read the entire thing...
