Instead of my usual Just For Fun monthly offering, I thought I'd share this story from humorist, Slim Randles. He's a frequent guest here at The Blood-Red Pencil, and this story of Dud and his writing challenges resonated with me. There was a time when I gave up on writing after a college literature professor suggested I take up basket weaving as a creative outlet. He was not fond of my writing. What I learned from that experience, and perhaps what Dud has learned from his, is to never give up on writing if that is your passion.  If you ask Dud Campbell, it’s all right to take a break from the arts now and then. Well …  since the arts are a part of a person, that’s not quite right. All right, it’s okay to switch arts now and then. Dud had pretty much beaten himself to death trying to fathom what to do in the novel about the duchess and truck driver, and it had left him gasping for ideas. So he went back heavily to his accordion. From the early lessons of squeaking and...

Looking ahead to Thanksgiving in two more days, I have spent some time considering all that I have to be thankful for. First and foremost, is my family. I am blessed with terrific kids and grand-kids who have been so good to me in a most difficult year. So have all my brothers and sisters and cousins and nieces and nephews. What would we do without family? Next I would have to say I am most thankful for all the friends I have; those here in my small town as well as those in the larger arena that is the Internet and social media. Who would have thought that one person could have thousands of friends on Facebook and Twitter and Pinterest and Google+. It boggles the mind and thrills me to hear from readers who have enjoyed my books. I am also thankful for the advances in publishing that have opened so many doors for writers. When I started my writing career, back when dinosaurs typed on old Royal manual typewriters, there were few choices for places to submit a book, and most of th...

Good morning dear readers. It is now time to lighten our mental load, and sharing a few jokes is almost as good as Yoga for a stress reliever. Notice I qualified that. Practicing Yoga and deep breathing are probably the best way to relieve stress, but laughter does run a close second. If you'd like to know just how good laughter can be for your health, check out this article: Laughter is the Best Medicine. When I read Merry Farmer's post Monday about the review trolls , I was reminded of how much stress the writers' life has. I don't know about you, but Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, so I thought I'd start with a few ghostly jokes that I found on the Halloween.com site. Q . Why did the game warden arrest the ghost? A . He didn't have a haunting license. Q. Why didn't the skeleton dance at the party? A. He had no body to dance with. Q. What do you call a witch who lives at the beach? A . A sand-witch. Image courtesy of Bear Tale...

Once again we welcome Terry Odell with a guest post. We like her so well, we have invited her to contribute regularly on the third Tuesday of every month. In keeping with our August theme of Back to School, Terry takes us back to grammar 101. This was covered a couple of years ago in a guest post by Lauri Kubuitsile, an award-winning writer living in Botswana, but it is always good to revisit this topic. I was reading a book recently where a character saw the "break" lights on the cars. And someone was waiting with "baited" breath. Or the book where a character put "peddle to the metal." And one I've been seeing far too frequently: "peaking" where a character ought to be "peeking" – which is not the same as something "piquing" one's interest. Are these simply typos missed by copy editors? One would hope that's the case, because if your editors are using S pell Check (or if you are), these aren't going to g...

The following is taken from my writing seminar manual: Writers have on their palettes some unique figures of speech that add dazzle to sentences and turn the ordinary into the unique. Consider the following when you are writing your next piece. Hyperbole – an extreme exaggeration. I’m so hungry I could eat a horse. The spider was the size of a basketball. Irony – an expression that is the exact opposite of what you mean. Of course, I’ll have time to do that. I’m only working seventy hours this week, and it’s my turn to cook supper, do the dishes, and clean the house. Irony lacks the hurtful element of sarcasm and can make a point that might be missed if stated another way. Metonymy – substituting one name for another. The press was invited. ( Reporters were invited. ) The White House had no comment on the situation. ( The President had no comment… ) The F.B.I. came to my front door. ( Someone from the F.B.I. came to my door .) Metaphor – says something is something else....

In Parts 1 and 2 of this topic, I gave examples of deep point of view or close third-person POV. Here’s one more example: Say you’re writing a romance, and you’re in the heroine’s point of view, showing her thoughts, perceptions and reactions. The hero, whom she’s just met under unfortunate circumstances, is angry. You’ll show his thoughts and reactions, not from inside him at that point (What the hell is going on here? he thought. What’s she trying to pull off, anyway?), but by what the heroine is seeing and perceiving—his tense posture, hunched shoulders, clenched fists, furrowed brows, set mouth, clipped tone of voice, angry words, etc. The general rule of thumb is “one scene, one viewpoint.” Or even better, wait for a new chapter to change the point of view to someone else’s. If you change the viewpoint within a scene, it’s best to do it only once, and leave a blank space before you start the next person’s point of view. Ping-ponging back and forth can be jarring and confusing ...

CAN YOU READ THIS? if yuo can raed tihs, you hvae a sgtrane mnid, too. Can you raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can. i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! I don’t know about you, but after I’ve worked on a manuscript for weeks, months, even years, I become so close to the work that I cannot look at it objectively anymore. As you witnessed with the above example, your eye will see a misspelled word or a typo and your brain registers the word that it’s supposed to be. A Seattle newspap...

Well, actually you will. Tracy Farr, a humor writer, shared these tips on his blog recently and graciously agreed to let us post them here. Enjoy! What do you mean, you can't find something to write about? Aren't you looking hard enough? Aren't you paying attention? Hold on, maybe you're looking TOO hard. Maybe it's right under your nose and you can't even see it. "You mean I should write about my mustache?" Why not? It's there isn't it? So write about it. By the way, it needs a bit of a trim, and I think you have some spaghetti sauce stuck in it. Ideas are everywhere. You see that UPS driver? The one who just delivered that package to your next door neighbor's house? Looks mighty suspicious to me. Looks like he's casing the joint. Looks like he's not even the regular delivery guy, but an escaped convict who highjacked the truck and is looking for easy access to a house. He'll end up terrorizing the lonely widow who live...