My Top 5 Holiday Gift Suggestions

November 19, 2016August 14, 2017 / Sheila McIntrye Good, Author / 3 Comments

It’s hard to believe, Thanksgiving, one of the most favored holidays of the year, is five days away. Unfortunately, like everything else, the holiday has changed and overshadowed by Black Friday or as I prefer to call it – madness.

Thanksgiving used to be a time for giving thanks, enjoying good food, and spending time with family and friends. Now, it’s become a time to eat and run. Personally, I long for the good old days, and I don’t think I’m alone. Just this week a saw a commercial from (Marshalls, TJ Maxx, and Home Goods) and given the last few years, it’s not what you would expect. Check out, Bring Back the Holidays, it will warm your heart.

The holidays don’t have to be a prelude to madness. With the internet, we can simplify things and shop from home – online. To make it even easier, for those of you who have a writer on your list, I have a few gift suggestions.

Sheila’s Holiday Gift Suggestions:

1- Subscriptions to favorite magazines are always a great gift. Check out some of my favorite ones from last year.

2- Software programs or a year subscription. Scrivener, ProWritingAid, Grammarly, AutoCrit, or Ginger are a few of my favorites.

3- Memberships to courses or writing resources, like One Stop for Writers, or a gift certificate for a writing course.

4-Writer’s Market Deluxe Edition, 2016.

5- A gift that doesn’t coast a dime. Time with those you love.

Gift Links you might like:

My wish to each of you is a happy and safe Thanksgiving Day.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the subject. Join the conversation. Talk to me or tell me your story. I’m all ears.

Source: My Top 5 Gift Subscriptions For Every Writer

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

November 3, 2016 / Sheila McIntrye Good, Author / 10 Comments

I don’t know what’s happening lately, but making decisions is like pulling teeth for me. Today, I waffle over the simplest things. The worst, according to my husband, is choosing from the menu whenever we go out. Food doesn’t have the same appeal, it once did, but even I had to laugh last night – when the waitress ordered for me. God love her; I guess she had other patrons waiting (the nerve).

I haven’t always been cursed with indecisiveness, especially when I worked. As a nursing administrator and single mom, with two young children (at the time), I didn’t have the leisure of hemming and hawing. I had to make decisions and make them quickly. Those days are long gone; my children are grown, and I left the workforce a long time ago. However, having to make decisions didn’t disappear or magically become easier. If you’re alive and breathing, you make decisions every day; some minor, others difficult, and a few that has the potential to shake the ground on which we stand.

There are things in this life worth taking our time over deciding – food or what to wear are not those types of decisions and truthfully, neither is my latest quandary. To you, it may seem silly; especially with all, that’s going on in our world. Nevertheless, I hope you’ll humor me and give me your opinion.

As you may recall, I mentioned weeks ago; I was planning to publish a short story collection. Well, it’s ready, but for the love of God, I can’t decide on which cover I want to use. That’s where you come in – I need you to vote in my poll.

Which cover do you like best? If you decide not to participate, I understand and appreciate your reading. It’s always a pleasure to see you here in the pasture. For those who vote, here’s a hint about the story collection:

“It has been said that darkness dwells within even the best of us. In the worst of us, darkness not only dwells but reigns.” ― Dean Koontz. Tweet this.

Vote and tell me what you think. Talk to me. Tell me your story and look for me on Facebook at SheilaMGood, Pinterest, Bloglovin, Twitter@sheilamgood, Contently, and Instagram. You can follow my reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. I’d love to hear from you.

Writer’s Block – Fact or Myth?

October 29, 2016 / Sheila McIntrye Good, Author / 14 Comments

I realize the existence of writer’s block is controversial. Writers who’ve never experienced the phenomenon believe it’s as much a myth as the Loch ness monster or Bigfoot. Well, I’m here to tell you, it’s real – at least for this old Southern gal.

Thank God, Rachel Harclerode agrees and in her guest post at Live, Write, Thrive, offers us, 9 Ways to Overcome Writer’s Block.

I’ve tried a few of her suggestions, but I think numbers 3, 5, 6, and 9 speak to me. To find out more, hop on over to C.S. Lakin’s Live, Write, Thrive and check out all nine of Rachel’s suggestions.

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Am I alone or do you suffer the occasional brain fart of writer’s block? What suggestions do you have? Share them, please.

I’d love to hear your comments. Talk to me. Tell me your story and look for me on Facebook at SheilaMGood, Pinterest, Bloglovin, Twitter@sheilamgood, Contently, and Instagram. You can follow my reviews on Amazon and Goodreads.

Pace and story structure: a blueprint for keeping the reader gripped

October 12, 2016October 21, 2016 / Sheila McIntrye Good, Author / Leave a comment

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Don’t you love it when you find a book, and you can’t put it down? The story is so captivating you can’t turn the pages fast enough. Likewise, there are those books that drag. It isn’t necessarily boring – just slow; it seems it takes forever for anything to happen or change the directory of the story – it’s called pacing.

Roz Morris at Nail Your Novel gives one of the most concise explanations on pacing I’ve read to date. Check it out and thanks, Roz!

Nail Your Novel

seattle_bway_mambo_01 I’ve had an interesting question from Josephine of the blog Muscat Tales:

Can you talk about pace? How to speed up/slow down the action/plot – and when? Is there a general blueprint for this or does the story type dictate the peaks and troughs of emotion, action and change?

There’s much to chew on here. And I think I can provide a few blueprints.

In order to answer, I’ll reorder the questions.

First, a definition. What’s pace? Put simply, it’s the speed at which the story seems to proceed in the reader’s mind. It’s the sense of whether enough is happening.
When to speed up or slow down?

This comes down to emphasis. You don’t want the pace of the story to flag. But equally, you don’t want to rip through the events at speed. Sometimes you want to take a scene slowly so the reader savours the full…

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