Stephanie is an award-winning copywriter, aspiring novelist, and barely passable ukulele player. Here, she offers writing prompts, tips, and moderate-to-deep philosophical discussions. You can also find her on and Pinterest.

Archives for Christmas: How to get rid of background exposition

I’m nearly done with my Christmas shopping! Just have to figure out what to get for my parents. Hmmm…

Y’all can still vote for my team’s origami tree (benefitting my local Humane Society) through December 20!

This post is a repeat, since I’m obviously rather busy with other things. ^ It was originally published on October 15, 2011.

Background exposition. When your characters have enough history to fill another whole book, but you’re not ready to write that book yet (or ever).

It usually looks like this (notice the proliferation of past perfect tense):

Read the rest >>

What I’ve been doing instead of writing Friday posts (it’s a good cause!)

Lots of folding.

Lots of folding.

Okay InMonsters and all BeKind readers: I need your help with something and all it takes is a click.

As most of you know, my day job is copywriting at the Balcom Agency in Fort Worth, Texas. This year for Christmas, we broke up into teams to create Christmas trees from found/recycled objects (we couldn’t spend more than $20 on materials). Each team is playing for a charity: the team whose tree gets the most votes gets a check from Balcom for their charity.

My team’s charity is the Humane Society of North Texas. They help animals who are abandoned, injured or mistreated. They also spay and neuter cats and dogs (for free in many circumstances). My team folded more than 300 origami cranes to create our tree (one of the things I’ve been doing instead of writing new Friday posts…sorry). 

All the trees are really cool. You can see them all here (click each picture to see more pictures).

Here’s where you come in.

I’d be ever so grateful if you’d vote for my tree! All you have to do is click: no personal info required!

Shameless plug, I know. But it’s for a good cause and it will only take you a couple of seconds.

Just click here, and then click the big green VOTE button under the origami crane picture in the bottom right-hand corner. Voting once is great – but if you are so inclined, you can vote every day through the end of the contest (and that would be phenomenal).

Are you doing anything charity-related for the holidays? I’d love to hear about it!

Inspiration Monday: the meeting of legends

I love Christmastime. I love all the gushy, sparkly, delicious warmfuzziness of it. The breath-holding anticipation of it. The Charlie Browniness of it. Even if it is 80 degrees outside!

Read all the things!

LoveTheBadGuy and another

LadyNimue

Miss M

LadyWhispers

Kim

The Rules

There are none. Read the prompts, get inspired, write something. No word count minimum or maximum. You don’t have to include the exact prompt in your piece, and you can interpret the prompt(s) any way you like.

OR

No really; I need rules!

Okay; write 200-500 words on the prompt of your choice. You may either use the prompt as the title of your piece or work it into the body of your piece. You must complete it before 6 pm CST on the Monday following this post.

The Prompts:

the meeting of legends
after the end
heist-minded
more with silence
falling together

Want to share your Inspiration Monday piece? Post it on your blog and link back to today’s post (here’s a video on how to do it); I’ll include a link to your piece in the next Inspiration Monday post. No blog? Email your piece to me at bekindrewrite (at) yahoo (dot) com. (I do reserve the right to NOT link to a piece as stated in my Link Discretion Policy.)

Plus, get the InMon badge for your site here.

Happy writing!

* MC = Mature Content. 

Opinions expressed in other writers’ InMon pieces are not necessarily my own.

Archives for the Holidays: Show, don’t tell: what it means

I’m feeling better for the first time in five days! How are you?

To stay on top of the Christmas cheer, I’m posting some of my favorite posts from the archives. This one was originally posted on October 7, 2011.

It’s the first rule of writing. We hear it all the time. In fact, it’s almost all we hear. Over and over again, they tell us…

Show, don’t tell.

Show; don’t tell.

Show! Don’t tell!

In the name of all that’s good, what the heck does that mean???

Find out >>

Inspiration Monday: tissue paper skin

I am getting better at tossing the used tissues into the trash can without missing. Nine lie on the floor, but I’ve got the last three in. How many tissues before I must admit that I have a cold, and that I am not simply “trying not to get a cold”?

At least one more.

These will warm me up!

Chris and another

Elmo

Craig

Kim

The Rules

There are none. Read the prompts, get inspired, write something. No word count minimum or maximum. You don’t have to include the exact prompt in your piece, and you can interpret the prompt(s) any way you like.

OR

No really; I need rules!

Okay; write 200-500 words on the prompt of your choice. You may either use the prompt as the title of your piece or work it into the body of your piece. You must complete it before 6 pm CST on the Monday following this post.

The Prompts:

tissue paper skin
don’t I know you?
the beginnings of strangeness
rip tide
last words

 

 

Want to share your Inspiration Monday piece? Post it on your blog and link back to today’s post (here’s a video on how to do it); I’ll include a link to your piece in the next Inspiration Monday post. No blog? Email your piece to me at bekindrewrite (at) yahoo (dot) com. (I do reserve the right to NOT link to a piece as stated in my Link Discretion Policy.)

Plus, get the InMon badge for your site here.

Happy writing!

* MC = Mature Content. 

Opinions expressed in other writers’ InMon pieces are not necessarily my own.