Don't mind me...I'm a writer

Tip of the Day: Hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July.


There were so many fireworks going off last night in our area that I thought I was under attack. As my husband and I stood out on our porch in the warm air the sounds and booms the fireworks were making were even more important if not more impactful than the colors and shapes of the fireworks themselves.

Which got me to thinking how important sound is in creating a scene. And I rarely remember to incorporate sound in my writing, apart from dialogue.

From now on every time I'm thinking about a scene, I'm going to imagine it with my eyes closed and try to think clearly about what the sounds might make. Maybe even recreating if possible.

So if I'm sitting next to you at Starbucks with my eyes closed biting on a pencil, randomly typing gibberish, or squeaking my shoes across the tile...

Don't mind me...I'm a writer

(I'm thinking of having the slogan put on a t-shirt if one doesn't exist already).

--Emily

Just Quirky

Tip of the Day: The new Jennifer Aniston/Adam Sandler movie, JUST GO WITH IT, is hysterical! Loved it.

Well, if there is one thing I've learned about writing quirks this week is that we tend to share similar ones! Like Em mentioned in her post, I too use the word "smile" waaaaaay too often. Seriously, you'd think my characters were borderline delirious at all times. So I need to remember to go back and cut out some of the smiling.

And like Deena, I also overuse the word "just". A LOT. I had no idea until we were doing line edits on my second book and my editor pointed it out. So I went through the book and took out as many as I could. And really, they weren't as needed as I thought they were. So it was a good thing. Funny thing though, right after doing this we were brainstorming titles for my third book and I threw out there, "Just Your Average Princess" thinking it would make my editor laugh that I wanted to put "Just" in the title too. But she loved it! So sometimes using "just" does make sense. But lots of times I just need to get rid of them.

One last thing I've noticed about myself and my writing only recently, my characters almost always don't have siblings. What's up with that? The MC in the book I'm writing right now has a sister. But the first 7 books I wrote? All only children. I have no idea why I do this! I have three brothers myself. So I'm familiar with the whole sibling thing. But I never want to write about it I guess! Very weird.

Do you have similar writing quirks to mine?

Kristina, Miss Author in Action