writing – Page 3 – The Writers in Residence

Deadlines, Deadlines, Dead Lines

by Jill Amadio

Whether you self-impose a deadline or your publisher sets one for you, a looming deadline (pardon the cliché) for writers can send terror racing through our veins, to say nothing of a scramble for inspiration for that perfect ending to our story.

Time as a concept rules our lives but little comes as close to engendering fright as an editor’s reminder, if any, that you have three days to send in your manuscript.

Idioms that refer to time are many but the word ‘deadline’ has few competitors for sheer panic, leading to writer’s block. Mine was so pronounced a couple of years ago that instead of diligently finishing editing my mystery prior to submission, I took off for a lecture on The Hidden Infrastructure of Waterways.

The deadline effect can strike as early as signing a publisher’s contract to write a book, with the due date blithely ignored in order not to spoil the moment.

If we separate the word into ‘dead’ and ‘line’ we can carry on without another thought. ‘Dead’ is, of course, a wonderful word for crime writers. It finds its way into titles, sub-titles, true crime, novels, and non-fiction. It is often overworked, but there are some great substitutes that have a satisfying, final ring to them. Even time itself cannot escape its fatal meaning when we talk of ‘killing time.’ As for ‘line,’ it can refer to the last line of your book or, my favorite, The End.

I remember talking to Michael Connolly at the Los Angeles Festival of Books one year when we were suddenly interrupted. I assumed he was urged away by one of his publisher’s staff for more book signings with the threat of ‘we have a deadline before the store closes..’

Escaping one’s deadline can become quite a game. We can close the document and play online Solitaire; dig into more research; meet a friend for coffee; walk the dog, or read someone else’s book and envy the author who made their deadline and is subsequently well-published and a much-in-demand panelist at writers conferences.

It is easy for creative people to bristle at a deadline but without one, would we ever finish a book? Many deadlines hang over our heads such as filing taxes by April 15, but it doesn’t seem to make us feel pressured as we fall into line without protest or ask for a delay.

Self-published writers, of course, have the luxury of ignoring any deadline they may initially give themselves, but adhering to a disciplined writing life points to a professional approach to one’s career.

Often, we use the word ‘deadline’ as an excuse to avoid doing something, seeing someone, or simply to justify lazing around claiming we are mentally sorting out a plot, a character trait, or a setting.

Throwing out the word has its own resonance. We sound important. It surrounds writers with an aura of being special when uttering it, often with a fake facial expression begging sympathy.

I wonder if a deadline has the same time limit if it were to fit into a short or a long day, month, or year. Does the deadline contract or expand with these descriptions depending on our individual sense of time? When push comes to shove, do we tend to interpret a deadline one way while its dreaded imposer means it in an entirely different context?

As a reporter, I was always under deadline, which I credit for bringing me to heel and making it easy to comply with my traditional publishers’ edict. But once released from their tyranny, plunging into self-publishing, and receiving monthly royalties I discovered how simple it was to let the world go by with no deadlines to obey.

Roget’s Thesaurus has zillions of ways to describe a deadline, not the least of which include crunch time, point of no return, and my favorite, kairotic. What? Oh, that means time-sensitive.

I once read that a character ‘insisted on killing time before his deadline.’ Is that an oxymoron?

Finally, there is an upside to a deadline: it can get writers into the chair and tapping the keyboard. Perhaps my colleagues on this blog have a secret way to beat a deadline. Care to share?

The AI Concept Isn’t New…And It Isn’t Necessarily Good

I’m a writer. I usually write fiction. I also read a lot of books. There are some classics that I read as a youth and have reread recently just to see if I got a different reaction in this new century. The same goes for old movies. Some were old when I first watched them, so now, fifty years later, they are most interesting to watch again just to see how they hold up. Most do quite well. What I found astonishing was the fact that some of the old books as well as a few of the classic movies could have been written today because their underlying themes were basically stories torn right out of today’s headlines.

What I find troubling is the fact that an awful lot of what’s reported on the nightly news sounds like some of these old movies and books. But what if the non-fiction news is really fiction written… by a machine?

Having a machine, as it were, spit out information or data or even a fairy tale using bits and pieces of things already out there in the “ethosphere” has been a concept used for centuries. Verbal stories were passed around by cave dwellers before people had a written language. You can bet one caveman’s story was retold from caveman to caveman in between the hunting and gathering they did back then.

Fast forward to the late Sixteenth-Early Seventeenth Centuries when Bill Shakespeare wrote his plays. There are those who say he took his ideas from other people. His name’s on the Playbill, so he did more with the idea than anybody else around at the time, so he gets credit for those memorable plays.

A century later, books were filling the shelves of private libraries and people who could read, read them. As more and more people learned to read, more books came out. The printing press helped enormously since those scribes in monasteries who were giving us copies of the Holy Bible could only do so much. God Bless them. But a basic education gives people even in the lower economic brackets a chance to learn things. Books worked.

Jump to the Twentieth Century and we get that invention that rocked the world, at least a world with electricity and an antenna to pick up television signals from a local broadcaster. People turned away from books and started watching stories come to life in their own living rooms on a twelve-inch screen.

Now you ask, where does this AI stuff come in today? You ever watch Murder She Wrote or Columbo or any of the many Hallmark Channel cutesy mystery/romance stuff? The plots vary only in which actor plays any particular role. Murder She Wrote always had an older, yet famous, actor or actress play the villain, or the person accused of the killing, and Jessica Fletcher would always solve the case after remembering one little clue we all saw about eight minutes into the show and which she remembers when she reveals the bad guy in the final few minutes of the program.

In Columbo, he was onto the villain, also a once popular TV or movie actor who was now doing guest bits on TV, from the beginning of the show. Most of the time it didn’t ring plausible, but people liked the show, so the plot remained basically the same for ten seasons.

The Hallmark movies are very formulaic, whether it’s the scene where the two who end up in love by the end of the movie throw snowballs at each other or the scene where the girl totally misunderstands the handsome guy’s motives and tells him to get lost only to learn the truth and they kiss in the last scene. They’re all the same. That doesn’t mean people don’t watch them. I do, but I also watch to see how many of those routines they use in each episode. If I did it as a “drinking game,” I’d be drunk about eighteen minutes into the show.

A lot of this redundancy is done by design. Back in the early-Eighties I got myself an agent, Ivan Green, and he tried to sell a few of my scripts to Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg who were producing TV shows like The Love Boat, The Mod Squad, and Charlie’s Angels. My agent submitted a few of my scripts to Fantasy Island that the pair also produced. One of my scripts about an angel who goes to the island was liked by Goldberg, but just as he was ready to accept it, Spelling decided he was only going to use the small group of writers who had been writing for the series for a while. Spelling didn’t want anything new. The series went a few more years, then ended in 1984.

Lots of television series must use the same team of writers because their episodes are so much alike. And different television shows are quite similar to others on TV, just like some books published by major publishing companies are like many other books also on their shelves. It’s been said for decades in television, motion pictures and books, if people like it, keep writing the same thing until the public gets sick of it. Publishers and producers seldom take anything, book or script, that’s different because they don’t want to rock the boat until something sneaks in under the tent and all of a sudden there is a new game in town and everybody uses that new theme for a decade or two. Vampires and the living dead have both had a long run. The “end of the world theme” keeps popping up. I’ve seen enough buildings blown up and car chases that should have killed half a city’s population along with the obligatory diabolical corporation owner or evil space alien who wants to conquer the world to last me two lifetimes. Today, it’s a lot of teen fantasy stories or some things that used to be considered X-rated back in my youth that’s perfectly Okay to show on major networks.

But isn’t that what AI does? It uses ideas already out there. It cuts and pastes stuff that’s sort of acceptable just enough to seem like a slightly different animal and then pushes it as something new that everybody should enjoy. That’s why I haven’t been to a movie in about thirty years, and I hardly watch anything new on TV.

Okay, let the AI machines watch and read the stuff they write. I’d prefer something different written by a human who really understands life as a living, breathing being does. Some newer books and TV series from smaller studios have themes that aren’t all that bad. I think a human wrote them, but I wouldn’t put money on it. I would really like to know there was actually a person with a mind and a soul who penned those stories.

If AI can aid science, great, as long as there is a human somewhere in the picture who can check the results and make sure we aren’t going down one of those paths we see in the apocalyptic movies where the world ends because a machine pushes the wrong button.

So, humans, why don’t you write the books and the movies. Now I just have to find a way to prove a human really did write the stuff I’m reading and watching… And by the way…no machine, other than my fingers typing on my computer, wrote this blog. Honest.

An Interesting Year Already

by Linda O. Johnston

Hey, it’s only the third week of January 2025, and a lot has happened that we writers in Los Angeles could use as subjects or backgrounds in our writing for the rest of the year.

What’s happened?

Well, those terrible fires that apparently made the news everywhere. Rosemary did a wonderful job of describing them last week. And I certainly identified with a lot she was saying. But with all that happened, I just found myself focusing on it when I started to do my post for this week. So here we are again.

I was one of the fortunate people who had fires start not too far away but not come very close. The winds were strong, and the air quality became terrible. But I didn’t even see any of the fires anywhere nearby.

Writers often take things that happen around us and make them subjects of our writing. Will I do that?

Maybe, and maybe not. I’m currently working on a new mini-series for Harlequin Romantic Suspense, and although I do have the stories set in the Los Angeles area, I’m not sure about working the fires into them.

I hope that all of you reading this remain safe, from fires and every other disaster that might occur wherever you are.

And I hope you all have a wonderful 2025.

Christmas in Bangkok & Hong Kong

by Jill Amadio

I looked forward to spending Christmas in Bangkok, Thailand. We’d moved there four months earlier when my husband was posted to Saigon, and I landed a job as a reporter for the Bangkok Post.

Writing about an Asian Christmas energized me, and I eagerly looked around the local shopping districts for gifts, decorations, and seasonal goodies for the kitchen. Writing features and pointing out the differences between our holiday in England and America and our current home seemed like endless discovery.

Alas, none of these visions came to a realization. Thailand, like most other Southeast Asian countries, does not celebrate Christmas because it is Buddhist. With three children expecting to wake up early on The Big Day and rush downstairs to open their gifts, what to do?

Ah! Got it! We’d spend the holiday in Hong Kong, just an hour’s flight away. At the time, the colony was highly attuned to British customs, and the big hotels, I was assured, displayed a splendid farang (foreign) Christmas that would enthrall any Westerner. In addition to enjoying the holiday, I planned to interview hotel guests, locals, market stall owners, and tourists. Among the latter I encountered, were Swiss, German, Swedish, and Australians.

I’d visited Hong Kong several times due to assignments and visited the island of Macau to cover auto racing. There were always a plethora of stories worth reporting for the newspaper in Bangkok but I was eager to experience how stupendous this Christmas adventure would surely prove to be.

My husband and I decided it would be silly to take wrapped gifts with us, so we planned to take the kids shopping to choose their own. My editor agreed that I would write about the trip, sending in daily reports and photos taken with my Polaroid camera before we skipped New Year’s Eve and returned to Bangkok. As our last day drew near and we were anxious to return home, we booked an earlier flight.

Big mistake.

It turned out that December 31 was always a massive celebration for both Brits and Chinese, a richness of reporting I decided to cover, even though I had plenty of stories of our own excursions in Hong Kong. Besides, who wanted to miss the turn of a century in this historic city at the southern tip of China?

Our children had never been in a toy store because two were born in Spain, where Christmas was essentially a religious holiday. Our third child was born in the U.S. during a quick turnaround trip to New York and back to Thailand to ensure her American citizenship by being born in the States. My son was already pledged to fight, at 18, in any war that Spain became involved in because he was born in Madrid, but his second sister was registered as American, as by then, I had received my own U.S. citizenship.

Our shopping trip was a great success with many changes of mind as we, as parents, pointed out the mounting cost of their decisions. Finally, having selected their toys and new clothes, and I had talked to several shoppers from various countries, we returned to our hotel. It was my turn to choose a gift. My husband wanted to go out alone and buy me a watch. I told him I’d like a Patek Phillipe, please. Off he went but returned rather quickly.

“Are you insane?” he asked. “Do you know what those watches cost? No way. You’re going to have to settle for a Rolex.”

At the time, Hong Kong was turning out fake Rolexes by the thousands. Most had wristbands that looked like gold but were, in fact, made from anything but that precious metal. Aha! Another good story! In fact, the bona fide Rolex dealer pointed out our mistake when we showed him the watch we’d bought elsewhere. Never mind. The band looked authentic, and the watch itself was confirmed as the real McCoy.

The festive air in the colony extended everywhere we went through the perpetually crowded streets. I knew that more than 7 million people lived in the small British enclave, and they invaded every restaurant, bar, and all the shopping districts in sight. Antique stores added red ribbons to their vintage wares, and the buildings were ablaze with Christmas lights. Even the hotel’s small office for guest use had a small Christmas tree. Laptops didn’t exist back then, but the electric typewriters fit the bill for typing up my interviews.

After a great New Year’s Eve, the hotel manager asked if we planned to stay on for January 6, the Chinese New Year, but by then, we’d had our fill of festivities.

I returned to Bangkok with a new satchel filled with notes and an extra suitcase for the kids’ toys and outfits. In Bangkok, we had to have our clothes tailor-made as there were no ready-made stores. The upside was that a dressmaker charged $5 or $6 to create a dress, a blouse, or a skirt. I’d simply bring in the fabric, show her a Chanel photo in Vogue or another magazine, and she’d copy it.

We left Hong Kong after two glorious weeks and enough material for several follow-up feature stories in the Bangkok Post.

Now, permanently living in America, with stores brimming with seasonal cheer, I wish my dear friends and readers at The Writers in Residence a Happy Hanukah, a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!

Copy Work: What is it? Why do it?

by Jackie Houchin

If you are an avid reader, you know that the best writers pull you into their worlds. Their words become images in your imagination as soon as you read them. The writing itself becomes invisible. (Or at least it should.)

That is a problem when reading to learn how the author did it. Instead of paying attention to the sentence structure, you are immersed in the story.

That is where copy work comes in.

What is Copy Work?

It is the practice of exactly copying another writer’s words, omitting no punctuation mark or capitalization, usually done with a pen.

Who even does this?

Jack London trained himself to be a better writer by copying out (in longhand) passages from Rudyard Kipling’s work.

Other writers have used Ernest Hemingway’s writings or copied out “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald. (A short novel)

Morgan O’Hara copied the U. S. Constitution by hand, word by word.

Greg Digneo, on SmartBlogger, tells the story of salesman Dan Kennedy, who copied a two-foot stack of sales letters by hand. Twice! He wanted to become the best in this field. Today, you would have to pay him $100,000 to write a sales letter for you. And he would get a commission on every sale you make.

What is the goal of copy work for writers?

The goal is to understand how authors write and express their ideas. What makes their writing work and flow? How do they structure their paragraphs and sentences? How do they create compelling characters?

Copy work helps you identify bad writing habits, like passive voice, stale metaphors, repeated words, etc. It will help you with good punctuation and grammar, spelling and vocabulary, pacing, scene description, and using dialog tags. It will help you write more precisely, with fresher, more original words.

Seriously!

Artists copy the Masters to improve their skills. If you want to be a better writer, copy great writers.

How do you make the most of your copy work?

Choose a writer you love, the book(s) you could not put down.
Set aside time to do your copy work daily (20-30 minutes for handwriting, 10-15 for typing). Use a timer.
Select a moderate-sized chunk of text. (Not War & Peace, but also not a Haiku)
When you finish copying one story, pick another one to work on. Keep going for at least 90 days. (The magic of copy work happens through repetition.)
Don’t stick to a single author. The goal is to learn writing techniques, not imitate one author.
Mix genres: nonfiction to fiction, fantasy, science fiction, mystery, poetry, film scripts. (They all teach different writing methods, scene structures, dialogue, setup, etc.)
Practice daily, if you can
At the end of each session, review the passage you copied and add notes. Reflect on what you liked and what you learned.
Follow copy work by moving into your regular writing. You are all primed to go.

By doing copy work every day, you will be writing every day. It will train your brain to see writing as a no-stress, no-pressure practice. It will make it easier to turn to your own writing. If you are having writer’s block or just can’t come up with a new idea for a project, story, or book, you can still do your copy work to keep that daily writing habit going. You know, seat of your pants in a chair…. etc.

What do you NOT do with your copy work?

You will not publish your copied text or try to pass it off as your own. Copy work is for your eyes only. It’s a writing exercise. It is not plagiarism.

Need some suggestions? Try copying out these.

Cat Person by Kristen Roupenian
A Death by Stephen King
The Veldt by Ray Bradbury
Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway

Have YOU ever tried COPY WORK? Did it help you? How? If not, will you give it a try? If you can’t comment below, drop me an email at Photojaq@aol.com.

CONFESSION: Years ago, I read that I could become a great writer if I could copy a book I admired in its entirety. Yes, the WHOLE book. I thought that sounded too good to be true. But, as I admired Rosamunde Pilcher and loved THE SHELL SEEKERS, I thought I’d try that book. (The paperback edition is 656 pages!) I think I got to page 35. I wasn’t becoming a great writer. I was getting bored, and my hand was cramping. I quit.

But now, after this research (short sessions, consistency, review and take notes), I’m willing to try again. I may not become great, but I think I’ll improve my writing skills. I have another book in mind to copy.

Perhaps in my next rotation post, I’ll tell you what I learned from the experience.

And thanks to the following for their insights on this “cool” topic.
RADEK, founder of Writing Analytics
ELIOT CHAN – Eliotchan.com, April 14, 2020
MATTHEW ENCINA – thefutur.com, July 13, 2020
JULIA HESS – craftyourcontent.com, May 17, 2018
LORRAINE THOMPSON – marketcopywriterblog.com, March 14, 2012
ANN KROEKER – Annkroeker.com, June 27, 2017

The Week I Rose Before Dawn to Write

My title is a bit misleading. In the days leading up to Election Day, I did rise in the wee hours and did write. I’m not a morning person, but for years I’ve known writers who worked on their stories before sunrise. There are certainly advantages: it’s quiet, the rest of the (sensible) world sleeps, word counts soar. But it was the election that prompted this deviation from my normal schedule.

In a moment of patriotism, I had volunteered to work at the polls as an Officer of Election (OOE) on Election Day, 5am-7pm and beyond. Yikes! I needed to “train” my system to endure such a radical change to my schedule, and that meant early to bed, early to rise. As long as I was at it, I would write.

Starting on Tuesday, October 29, I rose at 6 am for two days, 5am for two days, and 4 am for three days. I enjoyed coffee, my cat’s companionship, and worked on a short story. I read book on writing, touted as a how-to book on craft (we can always learn about craft); in reality, it was a commentary on writing, delivered in a lofty tone. It required a focus that kept me awake. I did not check my email or anything else on my computer (I wrote in longhand).

Bedtime ranged from 9-10pm, and I had no trouble falling asleep—until the night before the big day when I didn’t get to sleep until 12:30pm. That meant I had three hours and ten minutes of shuteye. Would I be able to make it through the day? As Frank Sinatra crooned, “I’m in the autumn of the year” (in more ways than one).

I did make it through, and enjoyed myself. I worked with a nice group of volunteers and the day was incident-free. The voters were pleasant and cheerful, a diverse group representing a range of ages and cultures. Interesting dress and hair styles as well. A writer’s paradise! I mainly helped them scan their ballots and handed out “I Voted” stickers. Many children accompanied their parents and enjoyed the “Future Voter” stickers. I also worked the floor, directing voters to booths, the ballot scanner, and occasionally the restrooms. Voting is at the heart of democracy and I appreciated taking a part in the process.

Would I do it again? Not likely, but it may be too soon to decide. Early voting holds more appeal, as the volunteers work in shifts, a much kinder arrangement. And it would still offer a way to pay tribute to my mother, who worked at the polls for decades.

My feelings about rising early to write: I liked seeing the sun rise and the light growing brighter and brighter. But I found it quite lonely, especially on the 4am days. The quiet was very, well, quiet. I can see the appeal, but it’s not for me.

Happy writing, whenever and wherever you string those words together. And thank you for voting!

Acting Class 101

By Gayle Bartos-Pool

If we’re lucky, we learn stuff everywhere we go in life. I did just that when I moved to California when I was twenty-five. I wanted to write for television and the movies. Me and five million other people. Since I didn’t know anything about the “business” of Hollywood, I thought it would be a good idea to take an acting class to see what writers needed to know when creating a screenplay character.

I happened to get a job working for a talent agent, and he got me in an acting class. This one was taught by Bruce Glover. You might have seen him in the James Bond movie Diamonds Are Forever. He played the sinister/funny character that was trying to kill off Bond.

What Bruce taught was when you’re playing a character, large part, small part, or walk-on, have your character do something that makes him stand out. Have a menacing smile or a delivery of your lines that has everybody notice you. Many famous actors started as bit players and went on to fame and fortune when they did something that stood out on the screen. And that doesn’t mean just having a pretty face.

As a writer, I figured that when I wrote characters, large or small, I would give them something that stood out. It might be their clothes that telegraphed what economic bracket they fell into or a whacky giggle to show that maybe their elevator didn’t go up too many floors. Maybe it’s the words they use that show their high-toned upbringing or their lack of education.

While taking that class, I had to do an improvised scene with another actor. We were to be boyfriend and girlfriend who were having problems. As the other actor and I were chatting on stage pretending we were seeing eye-to-eye while all the time pointing out the major problems we were having with the other character, I had a piece of paper in my hand that I said was the love letter he had written to another woman. I kept folding it in half, long-ways, until it looked like a knife. Obviously, my character was signaling what I wanted to do to my soon-to-be-ex boyfriend. Actions speak louder than words sometimes.
I try to give most of the characters I write that little bit extra to define them, too.

That acting class wasn’t the only one I took. I got lessons from Rudy Solari and Guy Stockwell. Both men had long careers in Hollywood. What Rudy had actors do was write a biography for the character they were playing so they knew exactly who they were when they stepped on the stage. It didn’t have to write pages and pages, just a brief background of that character, stating where he came from, how he was raised, his education, and what he wanted out of that scene.

What this did for the actor was let him know what motivates his character because in a screenplay, the writer usually just provides the dialogue, maybe how the line should be spoken like a whisper or yelling, and a few physical actions like running away or punching someone. Of course, the director will provide even more of those directions.

But the writer of a novel or short story needs to know who this character is, what motivates him, and things like his age, hair color, and stature, because when you’re writing a story, you don’t want to get to page 275 and have your twenty-five-year-old character with black hair all of a sudden be a thirty-six-year-old blond.

I write a short biography for all my main characters, adding to it as I think about what their past might have included that will help the current story angle. And I keep a Character List for everybody appearing in the story so I know who is who, and who they know, and why they’re there. It sure helps when I get to a spot and need to know all the previous things I wrote about that character like their age, hair color, or their role in the story.

And something else about those two acting classes, they gave me the confidence to get up in front of an audience when I’m talking about the books I wrote. I already know my motivation: get people to read.

Choosing a Genre

by Linda O. Johnston

Or does the genre choose us?

I’ve written here before about choosing a theme in the fiction we’re writing, but now I’m going to discuss selecting a genre.

Me? I’ve written in many genres, starting with mystery short stories way back when, then moving into time travel romances, mysteries, paranormal romances and romantic suspense. And often writing in more than one of those genres at the same time.

How did I choose the genre each time?

Well, it was partly what popped into my head and hung on there. And that was most often because whatever genre I decided to write in was also one I was currently reading a lot in.

Therefore, in that respect, the genre I’m reading most at the moment does often choose me, insisting that I write my own story or several in that genre.

So… mysteries? For me, always. Well, almost always. Though I’m still reading mysteries, my own mystery writing has slowed down. Not that I don’t include mysteries in what I’m writing, though, since my current focus is romantic suspense.

Yes, you might have noticed that a common tie between many of those genres I’ve written in is romance. I love love stories! Even when I’ve written a strictly mystery story, my protagonist almost always has a romantic relationship.

For example, in my first published mystery series, the Kendra Ballantyne Pet-Sitter mysteries, Kendra is a lawyer on hiatus because of some nasty things that happened in her life, so she’s making a living now as a pet-sitter. Her wonderful Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Lexie is often with her. One way or another, she keeps tripping over murdered bodies. And, of course, sexy PI Jeff Hubbard comes into her life to help her solve all those mysteries.

Oh, yes, that other sort of genre—well, theme—that is almost always include in my stories, especially these days, is animals, mostly dogs, whether or not it’s a romance or mystery or something else. And Kendra’s stories were in some ways about me since I was a practicing lawyer at the time and one of my Cavaliers then was Lexie. But I’ve said all that here before.

Now? Well, I always have dogs around me, and so do the protagonists in my current Harlequin Romantic Suspense stories. The last in my current series, the Shelter of Secrets, is finishing up next year, and I’m already working on the first in the next series.

And you? What’s your favorite genre to read? And if you’re writing, what genre(s) are you writing in?

Group Post #1 – How do you handle TECHNOLOGY?

Occasionally, we have an open spot on our blog schedule. One of our members suggested we all (or those able) could jump in for a group blog question. Our first was suggested by Miko Johnston.

How do you incorporate ever-changing technology in your writing, especially in a series that covers years?

Jackie Houchin — In my short stories, I use the technologies needed in the story’s time and place. I used GPS settings to find a long-buried stash in one mystery set in modern New York. In that story, the dates were firmly set by newspaper clippings. In my missionary kids’ series set in modern but rural Africa, cell service is spotty (indeed, you can’t even be sure of electricity), so I use these technologies but don’t depend on them. Actually, “no cell service” adds to the suspense of the moment when an emergency happens.

Gayle Bartos-Pool — If you write stories set in the Roaring Twenties, you might want to include a bunch of things to define that era, like telephone operators connecting you to whomever you are calling or a radio program providing music and some news. There were no televisions or cell phones back then. The automobile was new with the Ford Model T, and assembly lines were just gearing up.

Every era has its newfangled gadgets, but do they have to do more than set the stage in the story? Sometimes, too much detail distracts from the narrative unless there is one particular thing that plays a key role in your story, like the old typewriter with the damaged key and the ransom note with that same twisted letter. That’s been done before in several old movies, but it worked.

But if you are writing a contemporary tale, do you have to rely on the main character’s cell phone on every page? After a while, it gets old to have the characters pull out his or her phones rather than use their eyes and ears to see the problem at hand.

I do like gadgets, but I don’t depend on them totally in my books. My characters will use a computer, but they use their brains more.

Miko Johnston — Back in the 1990s, before I started my series of historical novels, I attempted to write a (then) present-day mystery thriller that centered around a secret high-tech device. The problem was that I knew nothing about the subject and figured what I’d made up would ring false with knowledgeable readers, so I put the manuscript aside. Twenty years later, I revisited the story and realized I knew enough about what had been developed back then to finish the story with authenticity.

I do incorporate technology in my modern work as it’s such an integral part of life now. For example, my short story, Senior High, comically follows three older women who travel to Washington, one of the first states to decriminalize marijuana. Although they haven’t “partied” since the seventies, they decide to get high one more time but can’t figure out how until Siri comes to their aid.

EXERCISING YOUR VOCABULARY

by Miko Johnston

When I think back to the dark days of the Covid pandemic, I don’t focus on the panic or the shortages. I remember the isolation. Although I had the good fortune of my husband at home and kinship through technology, I found conversations very limited. I began contacting people in my life whom I rarely saw but stayed in touch with, usually with a Christmas card, but many of my friends from the past were mired in their own woes or didn’t respond. Worse, despite having ample time to finish my novel in progress the distress kept me from writing anything…for eighteen months.

I still recall an evening at least six months into the lockdown. My husband, exhausted from yard work, went to be early. His older son called that night. In the past, I’d speak to him briefly before passing the phone to his father, but neither of us wanted to wake him. As I spoke to my stepson I began to realize how much I craved company, even if only over the phone, so what would have normally been a five-minute call stretched into over an hour. I think he, too, longed to talk, and for the same reason.

Our conversation was stilted at first, but not because of any personal reason. He and I were merely out of practice. We’d pause to think of the right word or string more than a few words together in a sentence. It took about five minutes to verbally limber up before we could chat ‘normally.’

That served as a wake-up call. From that day on, I began playing word games. It kept me entertained and, more importantly, prodded me to keep my vocabulary alive and active. Anything that forced me to plumb my memory for words (and spelling). I know many writers use writing prompts, but I wasn’t yearning to write better as much as speak better. I needed something deeper than that.

I began with Spelling Bee, a New York Times creation that gives you a ring of six letters with a seventh letter in the middle. You form words, four letters or more, that must include the center letter. I even got my husband hooked on the game; we still play it almost daily and compare our lists. Later, I added Wordle to my daily routine. You get six chances to find the five-letter word of the day – if you’re not familiar with it, you can read the instructions on the NYT website.

In both cases, trying to figure out the words stimulated my brain. Sometimes, words would pop into my head, even if they didn’t fit the puzzle. That’s when I decided I needed more stimulation and started inventing my own puzzles.

Wordle inspired a new way to challenge myself. I’d pick the first two letters of potential words and list as many as I could. I’d start with my “prompt” letters and work my way through the alphabet with the goal of reaching at least fifty words. As with my conversation with my stepson and my daily dose of word games, the more I challenged myself, the more words I could recall, and the faster they came to me.

Here’s an example:

HOW MANY WORDS CAN YOU MAKE THAT BEGIN WITH THE LETTERS:

BR——-

RULES:

Words must be at least five letters
No adding prefixes like S; ED; ING; LY; NESS to a root word of four or less letters
Only one version of the same word is allowed (ex: float OR floated OR floating)
Homographs are allowed with variations in the spelling to reflect their different meanings

(ex: score [to make shallow cuts]; score [to earn a point] becomes scoreboard)

No abbreviations
No foreign words unless they’re in common English usage (ex: pasta; rondo; bidet; pashmina)
No proper nouns
No acronyms (ex: AWOL)
No hyphenated words or contractions

GOOD LUCK!