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Callie's Blogs
A little about Callie
Paragraph 1
I have always loved to read, but I hadn't thought about writing until I was in the eighth grade. I had an exceptional eighth grade teacher. She required the class to write short stories. I loved the idea, unlike others. I soon learned I loved to make up my own stories. To this day I have some of those stories.
After marriage and 3 children, I began writing short stories after my youngest was in bed at night. This was my time to play. I loved this time alone, writing. Years later, I brought out one of these stories and decided to expand it into a novel. This was published in 2010. The story changed a lot, but my inspiration hadn't. It was about a young child who went to the hospital to visit her dying mother. She was so young she had no idea what dying meant.
In my book, her name is changed from Marissa to Maggie, now 6 in the book, which is For the Love of Lisa. Maggie still doesn't understand death. This is a book which touches readers' hearts. I get attached to my characters. My husband found me in tears as I wrote one day. He asked what was wrong. I explained something sad happened in the book I was writing.
Another example of how attached I get to my stories is that the family lives in Galena, which isn't far from where in live. Whenever I am in Galena I feel like they live there. I almost find myself looking for their old Victorian home. The cover of this book has a picture of the Old Victorian home which I associated them as living in this house.
How do I find enough to write about? Many times I have pulled things out of my memories of my childhood or adulthood with my children. For instance my kids skied at Chestnut Mountain in Galena. My youngest son commented to me that his little red plastic skies found their way into the first book. My oldest son's cat also found it's way into one of my books. A hidden door is in one of the books, just like one I read about as a child.
There are 4 books in The Carrington series. Many who read the first one want to read the 2nd one immediately. You can find For the Love of Lisa
here on this site under Books. All books I have published are there with buttons to buy directly from either Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
Are you interesting in writing a book?
Paragraph 2
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Callie's Blogs
A little about Callie
Blog 1
I have always loved to read, but I hadn't thought about writing until I was in the eighth grade. I had an exceptional eighth grade teacher. She required the class to write short stories. I loved the idea, unlike others. I soon learned I loved to make up my own stories. To this day I have some of those stories.
After marriage and 3 children, I began writing short stories after my youngest was in bed at night. This was my time to play. I loved this time alone, writing. Years later, I brought out one of these stories and decided to expand it into a novel. This was published in 2010. The story changed a lot, but my inspiration hadn't. It was about a young child who went to the hospital to visit her dying mother. She was so young she had no idea what dying meant.
In my book, her name is changed from Marissa to Maggie, now 6 in the book, which is For the Love of Lisa. Maggie still doesn't understand death. This is a book which touches readers' hearts. I get attached to my characters. My husband found me in tears as I wrote one day. He asked what was wrong. I explained something sad happened in the book I was writing.
Another example of how attached I get to my stories is that the family lives in Galena, which isn't far from where in live. Whenever I am in Galena I feel like they live there. I almost find myself looking for their old Victorian home. The cover of this book has a picture of the Old Victorian home which I associated them as living in this house.
How do I find enough to write about? Many times I have pulled things out of my memories of my childhood or adulthood with my children. For instance my kids skied at Chestnut Mountain in Galena. My youngest son commented to me that his little red plastic skies found their way into the first book. My oldest son's cat also found it's way into one of my books. A hidden door is in one of the books, just like one I read about as a child.
There are 4 books in The Carrington series. Many who read the first one want to read the 2nd one immediately. You can find For the Love of Lisa
here on this site under Books. All books I have published are there with buttons to buy directly from either Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
What should
I write?
Are you interested in writing a book?
Blog 2
The first step is to decide what you want to write. Sounds easy, right? It isn't always as easy as it sounds. I belong to a writers' group. Once a month we write on a prompt we are given. I used to hate this, as others would be writing while I was still trying to decide what I wanted to write. I would need to write fast in order to finish my little story. I'd be writing along about something that meant nothing, then suddenly I would come to a quick ending. They weren't very good to begin with, but they got better as time went on. Others began enjoying my surprise endings. Try it sometime. Make up your own prompt title such as... I lost my wedding ring while I was preparing Thanksgiving dinner. Or... you could Google prompts. You might be surprised what you find.
Are you ready?
Blog 3 Okay, so you need more time. Forget about writing a book. We will get to that later. Think of something that has happened in the past. It could be something which has happened to you or someone you know. Start writing. Don't worry about spelling or if it sounds terrible. Just write. Keep writing regardless. We aren't doing this now for spelling or punctuation. This is only to get you writing about something...or anything. Just practice writing. Don't let yourself think about anything that is going on around you. Unless there is some emergency of course! Keep trying to compose something...just anything! We will worry about the rest later. Everyone has to start somewhere!
Time to think about a subject
Blog 4
Have you given any thoughts about what to write about yet? Surely, your mind has gone there. Perhaps when you were practicing writing you came up with thoughts on what you think would be a good subject. If so...try writing a beginning paragraph.
Actually, this is the most difficult of all paragraphs. Have you read books that just don't catch your interest until you've read at least an entire chapter? You do not want this. Many readers won't keep reading if it goes beyond the first page or 2. We need to catch their interest on the first page, or better yet, the first paragraph.
It may sound silly but it's true. Keep the reader wondering just what has happened to cause the first paragraph's scene. There's nothing worse than a book being dragged out.
In one of my books I created the first paragraph only to catch the readers' interest. This is what I wrote.
Lilah Berman's rosary beads rested on the night stand. Her prayers had not been answered. They had been useless. As she tossed and turned, waiting for sleep to come that night, she thought back through her life to how happy she had been since meeting Charlie and how happy her daughter had made her, until recently.
Then I continued on with the next paragraph-
Earlier that spring afternoon.... and there began the story.
I will leave you now to start your story.
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