Ok, I admit it; I’m a word geek. I love words. I love the way they come together and combine to create images, the pictures they paint. My father was an artist and I’m sad to say I did not inherit his gift for drawing and painting, but I did learn to paint with words.
My pallet is alive with colors. Nouns are my white, the basic foundations of all sentences whether subjects, objects, or extraneous things thrown in to widen the base. Adverbs are black, adding dark contrast, and must be used sparingly. Adjectives are purple where a little goes a long way, and too much simply obliterates the subtler shades. Conjunctions and prepositions are the primary colors, tossed in here and there to combine with the other words, to create the final hues and tones. Continue reading “Verbs, Beautiful Verbs: The Core of Any Sentence”
I’ve never been the type to position myself on the bleeding edge of whatever new strategy or technology that comes along, so it’s not a surprise that when I recently learned about Street Teams, what was brand new to me has apparently been around for a while. I happened to stumble on it while perusing another author’s web page. He had a link to what he called his main character’s team, i.e. Annie’s Army or Sheldon’s Squadron. Curious, I clicked on it and found the sign-up to join this elite team. 
I would guess most non-writers think that the minds of writers pretty much operate all the same way: you get an idea, you write it down, expanding as you go. Years ago, I might have thought that myself, but my last few books over the last couple of years have completely disabused me of that notion. Every project has illustrated to me in ever-greater detail that my mind can work in vastly different ways when doing this singular yet very complex thing – writing. 
We’ve all heard about the authors who sit down at the computer and crank out 1,000 words a day, every day. Or write 50 or 100 pages, every day. Maybe some of you reading this are just that kind of writer. You believe in discipline. You believe in practicing your craft every minute of the working day. I’ve heard some say that it doesn’t even matter if what you write is good; it only matters that you write.