A Novel Creation www.WatersWords.com

In 1999 my husband and I went snow skiing in Salt Lake City, Utah. We wanted to check out the slopes to be featured in the 2002 Winter Olympics. Our first morning of skiing was fun. Park City is an incredible venue. As we neared the exit for one of the lifts late in the morning, we decided to race down to a nearby lodge for hot chocolate. Everything was perfect. The snow. The weather. Everything. Well, everything except the setting on my right ski binding. Bindings are set so that if a skier falls the boot releases from the ski.  I fell. My left boot released. My right boot stayed in the binding. The right ski planted itself firmly in the snow while the rest of my body hurled down the slope. I screamed in pain. Tom got to me quickly as did the ski patrol. I won’t go into the details. Suffice it to say that even though it did not break the skin, the fall sheared the patella off. In essence, I had a broken knee. Not a typical break by any means. My surgeon in Ohio cleverly f...

Join me in  welcoming Award Winning Author, Carole Brown, this week's guest on A Novel Creation. Carole is one of the nine authors selected for From the Lake to the River: Buckeye Christian Fiction Anthology 2018 . Her story, Christmas Angels, is a tender and emotional story taking place during WWII. I asked Carole to share some of her secrets to developing believable characters. "Shadowy forms. Vague details. Expanding. Decreasing. That's how my character developing goes." -Carole Brown Most times I know the beginnings of the plot to a new story. And as I study the structure line, the two main themes: romance and suspense/mystery develop fairly quickly. I know what I want to create in the suspenseful realm, what the mystery will be and sometimes the ending or how it will be revealed. The romantic side's greatest challenge for me is deciding how to end the story. I may not know some details, but with research, conversation with my best go-to peop...

  When you join the military, do they send you onto the battlefield with spitballs instead of guns? So why do people who decide to be writers slap words onto the page and never take the time to polish, proofread, fix grammar, spelling, punctuation, sentence structure, formatting, etc., before they send those words to a publisher? Yes, I know what you're about to say:  Fixing those piddling little details are what editors are for. Umm, NO! A traditional publisher will read the first paragraph of such a sloppy "masterpiece" and reject it immediately. If not sooner. No publisher has the time and budget to make your book readable. That is YOUR job -- BEFORE you submit. The only publishers who accept manuscripts full of grammar, spelling, punctuation and formatting mistakes CHARGE YOU to fix them. I make my living as a freelance editor for people who self-publish, or publishers who contract to publish people's books  for them . Books that traditional pub...

Note to my readers: I saved this post about Hurricane Florence for October. Typically, the hurricane  season  is about over in October. I  never  want to trivialize the impact of hurricanes on the lives of people. Now Hurricane Michael is  destroying everything in its path. I  decided  to take the post down. My heart and prayers are with those in harms way and those who have lost their homes and lives of loved ones.  

Join me as I Welcome Author JPC Allen to A Novel Creation! Allen is one of nine authors featured in the Buckeye Christian Fiction Anthology 2018, From the Lake to the River. I asked her to share a bit about her genre, country noir. I know you will enjoy the post and love her short story, Debt to Pay In the Anthology. Meet Allen and other authors featured in this new release THIS SATURDAY at All Around Books in Troy, Ohio. We will be there to chat, answer your questions, and sign books! Be sure to leave JPC Allen your comments below! My short story “Debt to Pay” is crime fiction, falling into the subgenre of country noir. Author Daniel Woodrell is credited with inventing the name about twenty years ago, but country noir, also called rural noir and southern noir, has been around for a long time. The TV series  Justified  is a recent example.  The themes of poverty and violence described in the nonfiction book  Hillbilly Elegy  are common in count...