Day: July 4, 2013

Switching Gears

Guest post
by Deb Borys

You’re driving a manual shift vehicle up a steep incline. The engine is laboring in high gear, choking and sputtering. If you don’t do something soon, you’re going to stall out. So you press down the clutch, flip the shifter knob into first gear, and slowly ease the pedal up to engage the engine once again. If you do it right, you’re home free, but if you miss the gear, if your foot slips or moves too quickly or slowly, you’re dead in the—well, on the hill.

Wait, you thought this post was going to be about writing? You have an automatic transmission, right, or take the bus? You don’t need driving lessons, but inspiration or insights into the mysteries of a writer’s world. Continue reading “Switching Gears”

Travel Tips for Your Vacation

I am given to understand that vacations are not completely extinct in some sectors of society.

Presumably, there are people who still travel for pleasure, and may even take their families along.

For writers, the challenges are many. It can be difficult to leave our characters at home, since they live in our heads.

The writer inside you will still be on. You’ll see people doing things and you will look for ways to incorporate or adapt some of those things into your writing. You’ll hear new words and phrases and possibly an interesting patois. There will be quirky mannerisms or speech tics. The scenery and settings will go into a mental file for later retrieval and use.

And, of course, the resort you go to will probably be run by a colony of vampires, or you will be drawn into some global political intrigue, or have to solve a murder case. The usual stuff. Continue reading “Travel Tips for Your Vacation”