A Great Opening Line

You've probably heard it before, but the opening line of your story can make all the difference when you are in the submission phase of your story. And yet it eludes many writers. We are too close to the story. We are sure we need to start where we started when we wrote the first...

40 Years of Rocky #MondayMotivation

Growing up in the Philly area, I remember gazing up at the Rocky Statue in front of the Spectrum as a young child. The story my mom told me at the time went like this, "A man tried every day to run up the steps of the art museum, which are really high. He worked...

How to own being an author, no matter what stage you are at.

Once upon a time I told a guy I was dating that I wanted to be an author. At the time I was in journalism school and  I had already completed three novels, and while I knew I had a ways to go and didn't dare to presume myself already an author, I knew it...

The Poltergeist remake: The gold standard of what not to do with ghost stories

I didn't seek this one out. My husband flipped on the TV tonight and the new "Poltergeist" was on. Now I read some of the reviews. I had avoided it because of my love for the original, but it was there and so was I so I watched while it did everything wrong. Now I...

Is “said” really dead?

When I went about getting really serious about improving my writing I ate up all the advice I could find. I pinned hundreds of articles and read all of them. I started to apply this to my work and I saw the quality of my writing increase for it. But as it turns out, not...