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Other Blogs Of Interest
- Author Elizabeth Bear — Hugo winner and all-around cool person
- Geek Of All Trades — A “Geek’s Eye” view of life and all things geek. Home of the “Word of the Day.”
- idisagreecompletely — Susan Lewis, blogger, writer, and fellow NaNoWriMo’er
- Interactions in Real Time –Jo Rhett, author and member of my extended critique group family, discussing writing and technology.
- Marmalade, Cat Detctive — Follow Marmalade, star of an upcoming story by my friend Maaja Wentz
- Ninth Circle Press — Snarky T-shirts, buttons, mugs / musings on creativity and humor / flash fiction / snowclones.
- Second Hand Roses — The worst–and sometimes, the best–of thrift store and yard sale finds.
Author Archives: sheilamcclune
Conflict; or, Keeping Things Interesting
(This posting originally appeared on The Melt-Ink Pot) One of the things I struggle with in my writing is keeping enough conflict going to make the story interesting. I find that I often create friction between two characters, only to … Continue reading
Happy Blogiversary!
(This posting originally appeared on The Melt-Ink Pot) Instead of my usual ramblings, this week I’d like to take the opportunity to wish my fellow Melt-Ink Potters a Happy Blogiversary. It was in September of last year that we decided … Continue reading
The Zen of Editing; or Strategic Planning
(This posting originally appeared on The Melt-Ink Pot) (Sorry this post is late. I’ve been waging war against produce and an infection this week, and rather than stay up even later last night, I decided late was better than … Continue reading
How I Choose To Spend My Time; or, Why Should I Pay Money For That?
(This posting originally appeared on The Melt-Ink Pot) Okay, I haven’t actually gotten to bed yet, so it’s still Thursday, right? {grin} A couple of weeks ago, we were at the Denver Dragon Boat Festival in Sloan’s Lake Park. The … Continue reading
Writing Challenge; or, How I Did
(This posting originally appeared on The Melt-Ink Pot) So it’s September now, and my summer writing challenge has ended. I wrote 30,163 words of fiction over the summer. It’s not a spectacular amount, I’ll admit, but I think they’re mostly … Continue reading
Merit Badges For Writers; or, How Do I Know If I’m Making Any Progress?
(This posting originally appeared on The Melt-Ink Pot) This week, I stumbled across a Web site that made me giggle: Merit Badges For Writers.* Yep, they’re basically electronic badges that you can download and post on your blog, your Facebook, … Continue reading
The Sex Scene That Wasn’t; or, When You Say Yes and the Characters Say No
(This posting originally appeared on The Melt-Ink Pot) Something amusing happened to me last weekend. In one of the stories I’m currently writing, I had reached the point where the next thing in my mental outline was for the main … Continue reading
Turns of Phrase; or, I Never Thought Of It Like That
(This posting originally appeared on The Melt-Ink Pot) I’m toying with the idea of having a character in one of my stories who uses all sorts of colorful comparisons as one of his quirks. I think it could be a … Continue reading
This Week’s Prompt: My Response
(This posting originally appeared on The Melt-Ink Pot) Well, I didn’t quite get a whole story out of this one (or at least, not yet), but it was certainly worth a chapter or thereabouts (around 1,500 words). In order to … Continue reading
Finding The Path; or, Which Way From Here?
(This posting originally appeared on The Melt-Ink Pot) The Internet is a big and wonderful place, full of websites that are helpful, useful, or just plain strange. It’s like a library that’s hyped up on caffeine, speed, hallucinogens, and maybe … Continue reading
Homonym Traps; or, I Do Not Think That Word Means What You Think It Means
(This posting originally appeared on The Melt-Ink Pot) Homonyms. They’re sneaky little words, really, slinking their way into sentences where they don’t belong, hiding from the spell checker, and then, WHAM! There it is, glaring out at you from the … Continue reading
Stay On Target; or, Did I Set The Bar Too Low?
(This posting originally appeared on The Melt-Ink Pot) Okay, first things first: If there’s anyone on the face of the planet who hasn’t yet seen the pictures (hard to believe because I’ve been babbling about it all over the place), … Continue reading
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Tagged a place for my stuff, finding time to write, focus, goals, procrastination
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The Long And Short Of It; or, "Right-Sizing" Your Ideas
(This posting originally appeared on The Melt-Ink Pot) I’m challenging myself to write short (or at least, shorter) stories this summer. However, one of the things I’m struggling with is how to tell the short story ideas from … Continue reading
Office Space; or Maybe, Finally…
(This posting originally appeared on The Melt-Ink Pot) Having a dedicated place to work on my writing has always sounded like a Fine And Wonderful Thing to me. In my house-buying fantasies, there would always be the perfect little nook … Continue reading
Summer Writing Challenge; or, How Am I Doing So Far?
(This posting originally appeared on The Melt-Ink Pot) Thought I’d take a few minutes this week and let everyone know how I’m doing with my summer writing challenge. For those who were out of the room back in May when … Continue reading
The Next Big Thing; or, What Shall I Write Today, Brain?
(This posting originally appeared on The Melt-Ink Pot) I saw an article today that made me laugh. It was about “The Next Big Thing In Publishing.” (Of course, it comes from The Onion, so you have to consider the source…) … Continue reading
Edit Head vs. Writer Head; or, Shifting Gears
(This posting originally appeared on The Melt-Ink Pot) One thing that I’ve discovered about myself is that it’s very difficult for me to be editing one piece while writing another. I think it’s because when I’m writing, I have to … Continue reading
Road Trippin’ For Research; or What I Learned
(This posting originally appeared on The Melt-Ink Pot) Last Thursday, my friend R. and I went to Kimball, Nebraska, to do research. Of course, I did a little homework beforehand, so I knew that Kimball is a town of about … Continue reading
Research; or How To Justify A Road Trip
(This posting originally appeared on The Melt-Ink Pot) In the latest installment of my ongoing saga of how to use up my surplus PTO, today (later today, after I’ve slept, that is), I’m going off to do some research. … Continue reading
Idea Shopping; or, My Day On The Mall
(This posting originally appeared on The Melt-Ink Pot) As I mentioned last week, my goal for this past Tuesday was to hang out somewhere besides my living room and do some brainstorming for story ideas. I ended up on the … Continue reading
CrazyWithKeyboard 