Mystery Making with Sisters in Crime New England

Events,

Join my writer friends at me at Mystery Making with Sisters in Crime New England. I am (and have always been) active in a number of writers organizations–and never more so than since joining Sisters in Crime New England (SinCNE). Mystery Making is the brain child of SinCNE. It involves a panel of four writers who create a brand-new mystery novel, on the spot. Members of the audience suggest character names and other story elements for us to use. In the past, we hosted these events live and in-person, but the virtual events are just as much fun. Join Edith

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3 Reasons to Join a Writer’s Group

Meanderings, Writing, ,

The older I get, and the longer I write, the more convinced I become that writer’s groups are an essential component of a writer’s life, success, and mental well-being. Why? -1- Writer’s groups provide a sense of community, of belonging. Although my professional background has always been in sales and marketing, I have never felt comfortable in large crowds of people (unless I was teaching). Until I walked into my first writer’s meeting in Boston in the late 1980s. There’s nothing that compares to being in a roomful of other creative people. When I’m with other writers, even those I

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What Does Summer Mean to You?

Meanderings, Writing,

Call me a creature of the sunlight. Like a little kid, I wake up as soon as dawn chases the darkness away in the morning–regardless of what the clock says. Summer is mornings, freshness, new beginnings. The vivid colors of the trees, flowers, and sky paint pictures I remember once the winter turns them sodden and blurry. Sometimes I think to snap an actual photo. Usually, I don’t. I collect sea shells, herbs for drying, and long walks once life cools down in the evening. I love bare feet, shirts without sleeves, windows thrown open to the wind. To me,

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Tip #4 for Keeping on Track with Your Writing

Writing,

In this final of 4 blog posts with tips for keeping on track with your writing, I want to tell you about the many free database programs available to keep all your book files in a central location. Many businesses use these database and project management programs for team collaboration and monitoring the numerous projects they have going. Well, we freelancers can use many of these programs as well, even if we don’t employ other people. Some of us go solo during the writing process, but others of us have teams that consist of critique partners, agents, and fellow writers

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Tip #3 for Keeping on Track with Your Writing

Writing, , , ,

In this third of four posts about how to stay on track with your writing, I’ll be discussing Tip #3: Using Multiple Notebooks in Microsoft’s OneNote. I use OneNote to keep at my fingertips all those things I used to find myself flipping through pages of manuscript to find because I knew they were in there but just couldn’t find them. The best thing about OneNote is that it not only works like a regular notebook, with separate sections and pages, it also permits me to color code everything and insert photos and hyperlinks right from the Internet. I can

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