Miss Demeanors

Category: Tips and Tricks

Are You Ready For A Change?

April 16, 2021
Connie Berry

Spring has definitely arrived in my part of world. Not a moment too soon. Leaves are unfurling. Birdsong fills the air. Violets bloom along the perimeter of the woods. The temperatures are usually warm enough to sit outside in the evenings—even if I have to slip on a warm jacket. I love spring. Actually I love every season in its turn—spring with its promise of new life; warm summer days at the lake; autumn’s glorious hues and the bounty of harvest; winter’s snowfall and blazing fires in the hearth. I’m one of those people who can’t imagine living in a place where there aren’t four distinct seasons. We all have our preferences, but for me, the joy of the seasons is change. We had a rough, cold winter this year, which makes spring all the more welcome and delightful. And who in the cool, rainy weather of March and April doesn’t look forward to long summer days—picnics, biking, jumping in the lake? And then just when I’m done with the heat and humidity, along comes autumn with its brisk temperatures and gorgeous colors. Even winter is welcome—the first snowfall, the holiday season, winter sports. I agree with Charles Dickens, who […]

April 15, 2021
Keenan Powell

I’ve been rolling through the first revision of my WIP (work in progress) for a week or so, tweaking forty pages a day, when I hit a problem. I had a couple of sequential scenes that, when written, felt intrinsic to the story and quite plausible but on this pass weren’t working. I didn’t know what the problem was. Should I cut them? I didn’t want to but I couldn’t articulate a reason why. Should I revise them? How? I didn’t know what was wrong with them. So I decided to sleep on it. My reward was weird dreams. In one dream, I’m watching a man being dragged down a river by a sea bass that he had hooked. It was a thing he liked to do, like sea bass charioting. Eventually the fish got away and he had to trudge back up the river, which was only waist-deep, to stake out his favorite sea-bass catching spot. In another dream, I deftly revised a scene in a thrilling chase story, like North by Northwest, and just before I was to send it out to the betas, I realized there was no McGuffin – no reason for the bad guys to […]

April 12, 2021
Alexia Gordon

My first time moderating a panel. Whoo boy. I know I won’t be perfect, but I’ll do my best to be good.

April 6, 2021
Keenan Powell

Crutch words: a search and destroy mission.

March 30, 2021
Susan Breen

How trees help me understand people better.

March 26, 2021
Keenan Powell

Miss D’s Friday question: what do you do between drafts? I put the question to my fellow bloggers and was surprised by their answers!

March 18, 2021
Connie Berry

I’ve always been a bit in awe—and not a little jealous—when I read on social media that an author is heading out for a writer’s retreat. It’s the ultimate luxury in my book—days spent in uninterrupted thinking/plotting/writing. Here are my Top Ten reasons why a writer’s retreat is worth its weight in gold.