StorytimeWednesday

May your New Year be filled with an abundance of stories to be written, plots to be discovered and characters that make you smile and hate them at the same time. Happy Writing this year and remember never give up on your dream to finish that novel, short story or screenplay.   

 Taking a Vacation Day see ya next week.  Author Elizabeth Kilbride is a former political operative, author, scriptwriter, historian, journalist. business professional, and creative artist, and life coach consultant. Ms. Kilbride holds a Masters in Criminology and a BS in Business Management who stepped out of the loop for a while, but who is now back with a powerful opinion and voice in the direction of this country and our economy. As a life coach, she is available to counsel individuals to enjoy their dreams and a better life. Ms. Kilbride loves to travel, photograph her surroundings and is also a gourmet cook who loves to garden and preserve food for the winter months. 

Wishing everyone a joyous and rewarding Merry Christmas. May you also have a peaceful day to enjoy each others company, and maybe learn something about one another. The gifts you receive today should not be about how much money was spent on them, but rather the sentiment behind the gift. Be thankful you received a gift from someone who appreciates you. Also, remember to say a special prayer of thanks and love to those serving in uniform here at home and around the world, protecting freedom and democracy.  Author Elizabeth Kilbride is a former political operative, author, scriptwriter, historian, journalist. business professional, and creative artist, and life coach consultant. Ms. Kilbride holds a Masters in Criminology and a BS in Business Management who stepped out of the loop for a while, but who is now back with a powerful opinion and voice in the direction of this country and our economy. As a life coach, she is available to counsel individuals to enjoy their dreams and a better l

  You can edit your story like a Publisher!   Although every publisher believes that every writer needs a good editor, that’s not really true, if you can write a book, you can learn to edit your own work before it is published.   Why do you need to edit your work once you’ve finished writing your best work? The reason why you need to do editing of your work is because you want your readers to be able to comprehend what your story is all about and want to promote your work to their friends.   So you’ve written a novel and now it’s time to begin the editing process. Fist off be sure to run your manuscript through your spell check to ensure everything is spelt correctly. Secondly be sure to find all the word “That” and delete them all. Third print off your manuscript and make sure it’s double spaced with 1- 1 ½ inch boarders so you can make notes accordingly. When I edit one of my finished manuscripts, I punch holes in the copy so I can place it into a three-ring binder. Then I leave

    I hear aspiring writers tell me all the time that they wish they had more time to be creative and write that novel they crave to produce. When I hear that line, I immediately tell them that they have no desire to be a writer, instead it’s only an unwanted dream to be able to write. This is when they get upset with me and want to storm off and curse me out for being honest with them. Like I’ve said in the past to many a protégé, if you can’t taste it, you can’t produce your written word in that novel you want to write. What does that mean? It means you have to really want to be a writer in order to be a writer. You must crave the opportunity to write that novel or movie script and then make it happen. Your dedication is key to your success. There is always time in your day to write, you just need to be dedicated enough to find it. For me, writing happens early in the morning over my first cup of coffee, or late at night with a cup of tea. When I first started writing, I only had an

  7 common story plotlines in any story   Every book no matter the genre uses one or two of the 7 common story plotlines wrapped up in their writing. No matter a long or short story, the basic pattern of story plotlines can be found in any story written since the conception of novel writing. In order for you to understand the 7 story plotlines in any story, you must first understand how a book is designed so that the story is told in the right format. Here is how a good story is constructed with the main points as follows: every story has 4 acts, the setting up the story with the problem that needs to be solved which is   (1) Unpleasant Incident or the issue that caused the situation or dilemma for the main character,    then you have the first arc or (2) Plot Point 1 or Arc 1, This arc takes the reader from one state at the beginning to a changed state, then you have Act 2 which is the   beginning of recovery from the problem, now we enter the first event that triggers the first (

  Secrets to Writing Better stories Every one thinks that writing is as easy as a piece of cake, unfortunately, those who think that have never written an article, or even a book to know or understand how difficult it can be to string words together that make sense and tell a story at the same time. Writing a story is the hardest thing of all. To come up with characters with good names, a back story and a goal within the story is really the hardest of all, besides the overall story itself. Then you have to string out that story with an antagonist and a protagonist that reaches 120,000 words to fill the pages of a book. If your really good you can write the movie script to tell the story which is only about 100 pages long. Either way, the concept of telling the story is the pinnacle of writing first and foremost and that can take up to a few years, or only a few months, depending on how good you are as a writer.   I’ve written several books in my career, my first one took 6 months to