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My friends, I'm in a bit of a quandry.  Recently, the third book in Maureen Johnson's Shades of London trilogy dropped, and so I began re-reading the first book to remind myself of what was happening.  This is my standard operating procedure with series - I like to remember all that went before the new book, so I don't have to keep asking myself who different characters are. My problem, however, was that as I read  The Name of the Star , I realized that there were significant...similarities, to my own Paranormal Investigations, Inc. series.  I know for certain that I read this book before I started writing PII, so I have no doubts that I was influenced, but...well, it gave me a bit of a shock.  I know that stories have been told multiple times over the years, and that the books aren't exactly the same (no Jack the Ripper in my book, for instance), but it's still a little painful when realizing that someone else had a similar idea, and they wrote it better than you

New month, new beginnings with the Writing Excuses Master Class.  This month is apparently going to be focused on characters, which is great, because that's where things tend to fall apart for me.  The writing  prompt  (and yes, I realize I'm a week behind): Take three different characters and walk them through a scene. Convey their emotional states, their jobs, and their hobbies without directly stating any of those. The scene in question: walking through a marketplace, and they need to do a dead-drop. Take one: Janet kept her eyes fixed firmly on the road ahead of her as she jogged around the track.  She felt awkward without her iPod and keys, but the phone call had made it clear that she needed to come right away - no time to do her normal stretching routine, even.  The track wrapped around the waterfront, passing in front of the busy Saturday Market.  Sunny weekend days were at a premium, and it seemed everyone in the city had decided to go shopping today. When she

I am a bad blogger who didn't blog last week (or most of this week) - shame!  I will have to work on that.  At any rate, I'm planning to skip the Writing Excuses writing prompts on the "wildcard" weeks, at least as far as the blogs are concerned, and will only be focusing on the master class ideas.  I've also gotten my writers' group at work started on them, which makes me happy.  This week's  prompt  ties into some of the things I do with character development, so I'm excited to see how this turns out: Take one of the ideas you're excited about, and then audition five different characters for the lead role in that story. Make sure they're all different from each other. I'll be focusing on the camera shop of horrors, and I'll be auditioning for the role of the keeper of the portal, who is forcing the employees of the camera shop to keep the portal open for nefarious reasons. ENTER Dennis - Caucasian male, looks late-twenties but i