Hello everyone!

Although I've fallen off the blog wagon, I am still here. I promise. However, I've had a lot on my plate lately. For example:

Happy Friday everyone! Here's a collection of the fabulous writing resources I found on the interwebs this past week. Peep through them, and hopefully you will find something that helps your writing this weekend.

Hope everyone has a fabulous weekend!

Do you write what you know? Do you write what you do? How do you fully flesh out something on the page when you don't have any experience in the topic? We're writers so we do our research...google, reading topical articles, talking to people in the know...but it can sometimes come out flatter than the page it's written on.

Nothing comes close to first hand experience. After all how would you describe chocolate if you've never smelled it's aroma, tasted it on your tongue, or felt the way it melts against your cheek. If you have only seen pictures of it there's no way you can get it right.

I was pondering this the other day when I remembered a drama class I took in high school where we covered the topic of method acting. The basic idea is: if you were playing the part of a homeless man, you would live that way for a few days or weeks, if you were playing the part of a nanny, you would borrow some kids to look after for a good period of time, if you were playing a sleep deprived mad man, you would forgo your pillow for a night or two...you get the point. In order to portray a role as purely as possible, they would experience their character's world on an intimate level.

This same concept can be applied to our writing. Immerse yourself in a hobby or dabble in an interest of one of your characters. This may not always be affordable, legal, or sane. In those cases, google might be the best that you can get. But if for example, your MC likes to sew her own clothes, by all means, take a sewing class. It will give you a better understanding of why your MC might like sewing so much and at the same time it will help you broaden your horizons. Never a bad thing.

How would this method be best applied to your characters and story? Feel free to share your ideas below!

Because of this crazy-cold-for-Houston weather our energy provider has been ordered by a high muckity-muck to implement rolling blackouts across the state of Texas. Already this morning we've had three 45-minute outages and I'm estimating that another one is due to arrive at about 12:30ish (CST). Unfortunately we only have about an hour of power in between the outages. That doesn't leave a lot of time for us to get anything done round these parts.

I'm kicking myself for not bring a book with me today (like I often do so I can read on my lunch hour) nor do I have my notebook (so I can write like I often do on my lunch hour)

...grumble...grumble...grumble...

So, I'm off to scrounge up some blank paper so maybe I can get some writing done the next time the lights go out.

Of course it's definitely not as bad as some of you in the northern regions that are snowed in and under. Hopefully everyone is staying warm and safe and getting some writing done!