Dear Writer

This week for our culturing creativity episode, we discussed the effect clutter has on creativity: good, bad or neither? We talked about our personal habits, and whether we think these habits make us more or less productive.

On this month's hour long episode, we deep-dived into theme and began threshing out what it really is and why it's important. We talked about how we use theme and ways to deepen the theme without coming off as 'preachy'.

In this talking shop episode, we discuss two of the writing tools that have been helpful to us in our writing. This month, Ashley’s choice was Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative by Austin Kleon, and Sarah attempted to unravel some of the many benefits of reading On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King.

For their leisure reading this month, Sarah has been catching up with Robert Galbraith’s Cormoran Strike novels, finishing the fourth in the series, Lethal White, and beginning the fifth, Troubled Blood. Ashley got a great recommendation from a friend and has started a book called Fifty Fifty by Steve Cavanagh.

In the author spotlight this week, we had an enlightening chat with Patrick D. Kaiser about his verse novels. Patrick has written several poetry collections, as well as some action-packed verse thrillers.

The second book of the Death-Bringer Chronicles, Sight, is now available on amazon for purchase. Patrick is kindly donating 50% of the proceeds from this book to help out a friend who is undergoing treatment for thyroid cancer. To aid in this worthy cause, visit his author page on Amazon.

In this culturing creativity episode of Dear Writer, we discussed the benefits of music in creating inspiration. This included both inspiration for plot events and character development within your book, but also in encouraging the muse to roll up his or her sleeves and get down to business!

In another of our hour-long episodes of the podcast, we discussed the importance of setting to a novel, including how setting can add to different aspects of the novel and how it can be used to deepen the readers understanding of both the external plot and the character’s inner struggles.

In this talking shop episode, we reviewed two different writing tools. Ashley’s choice this month was The Elements of Style (4th Edition) by William Strunk Jr and E.B. White, and Sarah reviewed the Story Grid, with the book being written by Shawn Coyne, and the accompanying podcast produced by Shawn Coyne and Tim Grahl.

In our leisure reading time, Sarah talked about Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng, and Ashley discussed The King Must Die by Mary Renault.

On our fifth author spotlight episode, we have Keith R. Fentonmiller. Keith works for the Federal Trade Comission as an attorney by day. In his spare time, he writes historical fantasy novels. The first novel of his series, Fate Accompli, is due to be published on May 18th by Ellysian Press. He is also the author of Kasper Mützenmacher’s Cursed Hat, which was previously published by Curiosity Quills. This novel is currently under revision and will become the sequel to Fate Accompli so definitely keep an eye out for its rerelease later! You can contact Keith at his website, on Instagram or Facebook, or learn more about him and his books at Ellysian Press.

Find links for the resources and show notes at our website, www.lindersoncreations.com

In this culturing creativity episode, we explore procrastination. Why writers procrastinate, our own personal foibles and flaws, and what you can do to stop procrastinating and start writing.

On our hour-long episode this month we talked about researching; why it's important for writers to research, how we do it, and some tips and tricks we use to make it more bearable, and sometimes (dare we say it?) fun.

In one of Ashley's researching tips, she mentioned the use of a reference manager. For those of you who are interested in using this method, she recommended Mendeley, which you can download free from https://www.mendeley.com/