Welcome to Part 3 of my contribution to Eclecticali’s Masquerade blog party. This might be it. But I’m not sure. If you missed Parts 1 and 2, you might want to start there. The Presence James re-entered the hallway, baffled. Something had pulled Taliana into the library, but the room was empty and dark, neglected on what…
Welcome to Part 2 of what is becoming a multi-part series of stories for Eclecticali’s Masquerade Ball blog party. Click here to read Part 1, if you missed it. The Pursuit James followed Taliana back into the foyer. She moved quickly, almost jogging, the click of her heels echoing through the space. She seemed to…
The following is my contribution to Eclecticali’s Masquerade Ball blog party. I confess; I’ve been terribly confused about the whole thing. But Allison (Eclecticali’s actual name – I’m not referring to myself. I’m not that weird) assured me that I couldn’t mess it up, so here goes. It’s the first part of a longer story.…
A couple weeks back, I wrote a post about dialogue, in which I listed some shoulds and should nots in writing dialogue. If you missed it, you might want to click on the link and get caught up. Go ahead. I’ll wait here. *munches popcorn* Two points I didn’t address in that already-long post were tension…
Okay, so this has been a really busy week and I didn’t have adequate time to think of an original Funny Friday post. Ergo, I bring you funny signs! I know these aren’t new. I’ve been around the interwebs long enough to realize this. So my goal here is to present signs that are new to…
Halloween is coming, and there are some scary things in the news. Ebola. Isis. The election. *shudder* I read an article today that said as long as you don’t live in West Africa, your odds of contracting Ebola, even with the reported procedural lapses, are worse than your odds of being crushed to death by…
I finally did it. Something I’ve been wanting to do for months. I googly-eyed my kitchen. I know, it’s not a normal life goal. But I never claimed to be normal. Life’s too short and interesting for that. It started in the evening, after the kids went to bed. I wanted them to wake up to…
Dialogue is one of my favorite elements of fiction. While it seems to only show two characters shooting the breeze or arguing, it really does so much more than that. It moves the overall story forward. It reveals character. It provides action within a scene. It quickens the pace of the narrative. It provides tension and…
Ironically, WordPress trolled me and decided to publish this when it was only a title, proving the publishing status of “draft” completely useless. Not Punishing People Rule #1: Don’t send title-only posts to your followers’ email. Sorry, email followers. Stupid WordPress. Anyway. I’m here today to discuss how people punish their followers with their social…
Welcome to the latest Funny Friday post. This week, it’s all about irony – situational irony, specifically. That’s when things happen the opposite of how you expect them to. I did a post a while back about why irony is hard to teach (read it here), and one of the points was irony is easier…
Allison Maruska 