Featured post

What’s In A World?

By Terry C. Misfeldt

Fiction writers are often tasked with creating a new world. A favorite fiction writer who created numerous worlds was Frank Herbert, author of Dune. Arrakis (Dune) was a sand planet known for producing the spice and sparking wars. As fiction or science fiction writers, it behooves us to read the work of others and learn about creation.

What I found interesting about our planet, Earth, was what I read in a Delta Air Lines System Route Map from1982. And I quote: “From the standpoint of its inhabitants, the earth presents a combination of features so exceptional it must be considered miraculous. Its size is just enough to hold a sufficient atmosphere but no so great as to exert too strong a gravitational effect upon life. The atmosphere contains enough oxygen to support life yet not enough to permit excessive oxidation. Our distance from the sun is almost unbelievably perfect for the exacting requirements of life. Life must have water in liquid form, a condition possible within extremely narrow temperature ranges. These temperature ranges are present in only the minutest fractions of universal space, yet they are present on earth because of our distance from our sun. This delicate balance is maintained so perfectly in the earth’s orbit that the most trivial deviation would destroy all life on the earth’s surface.”

So in building your fictitious world, remember to consider the availability of water. It is essential for human life. If you create non-human characters, some other life sustaining liquid becomes viable.

Gravity is another concern for human beings, so weigh those factors in crafting a new world for your characters.

And consider what your new world offers in terms of temperature extremes. If you have human qualities, those characters will need temperature controlled suits or some other way to survive in your planet’s atmosphere.

Possibilities, like the universe, are endless in your worlds.

Featured post

Back Roads

By Terry C. Misfeldt

Interstate highways facilitate quick travel from one location to another. Speed limits let you drive at more than a minute per mile. Scenery flashes by…just like the vehicles in a bigger hurry than you…or the slower ones in the right lane. The question: Do you get to enjoy the trip and the life you pass by?

For a pleasant change, take the back roads. The ones where the speed limit is fifty-five miles an hour. Now, if you’re going to do this, don’t be in a hurry. Take your time. Observe what’s going on around you. The farmer baling hay in his field. The vendor selling her sweet corn on the side of the road. A bald eagle soaring overhead…just remember to keep your eyes on the road, too.

Stop at the Amish general store. Visit the cemetery on a hill, even if none of your relatives reside there. Check out the country church and talk with the local residents. Enjoy a meal at the diner on main street. Watch for wildlife scattering from the swamp along the two-lane road. Slow down for cyclists or a Mennonite horse-drawn buggy. Spend some time in the small town and ingest the local culture.

Pull off that back road and watch the water flow down the river. Take a walk on a woodland trail and relish the peaceful solitude. Remember to leave it better than you found it. No one wants to pick up your trash. Listen to the birds. Spend some time observing the cows grazing in the meadow. Breathe deep the fresh country air and don’t be alarmed. Cows need to poop, too. I call it “Dairy-Air” for derriere.

Life is good on America’s back roads. Yes, people live there because they want to enjoy what you see on a random trip every day. Trees in full autumnal color. Snow drifts. The smell of fresh mowed alfalfa (hay). Sunsets over the lake. Chirping birds. Life. And, yes, it’s okay to slow down once in a while and enjoy what we have in the United States.

Featured post

A Humorous & Irreverent Look at the Elements of Writing

T.C. Misfeldt copyright 2024

Plot                                   The place to bury someone’s body in a cemetery.

Sentence                           What you must serve if you are convicted.

Comma                             What you are in if you are unconscious for some time.

Paragraphs                     Two charts used in a presentation to explain a trend.

Period                                 Part of a woman’s monthly cycle.

Story                                    One level of a building or house.

Tale                                       Something a dog, cat, or other animal wags.

Pen                                       A place where you keep an animal from escaping.

Essay                                   How you evaluate the worth of a precious metal, like gold.

Novel                                   Something unique.

Keystroke                          First sign of heart trouble.

Phrase                                What happens to children as they age.

First Person                     Adam.

Second Person             Eve.

Third Person                   Cain.

Symbolism                      One of the techniques used by drummers.

Parentheses                   A disciplinary style used by Mom and Dad.

Climax                                You know, something that’s part of intercourse.

Conflict                              What happens when a prisoner escapes from jail.

Writer                                  A person who works to correct wrongs.

Quote Marks                  Evidence that a vehicle went somewhere.

Hero                                     Sandwich you order at a deli.

Composition                  A place to put garbage and turn it into fertilizer.

Hook                                    What’s used to catch fish or hang something.

Memoir                              A piece of furniture that is usually found in a bedroom.

Copyright How to avoid stealing someone’s work the wrong way.

Featured post

Celebrate Your Uniqueness

By Terry C. Misfeldt

Every one of us is unique in our own way. You may be a Type A with variations of your other personality traits. You may be someone who just wants to do their job and go home to enjoy peace and quiet.

As a writer, that unique nature you bring to writing must be celebrated. Your writing should reflect how you feel…or how you want to feel about your characters, settings, and words in general. How do you see a forest of trees in spring? Fall? Winter? Your perspective is yours alone, so describe how you feel about what you see.’

Your eyes, your brain, and your writing style are yours alone. Sure, you may follow the style of a writer you admire but you are not them! You are you. Who is that person? Why do you write the way you do?

There are–basically–two people you write for: One is the reader you want to reach and entertain, inform, educate, scare, or merely amuse. Get to know that person as much as you can. The second person is you. You must be satisfied with the words you write. Remember, you’re the only person who can write those words. It is your thought process that brings them out and puts them into your computer, your journal, or that spiral notebook you use to craft your writing.

Just be you.

Featured post

Promotional Outlets

By Terry C. Misfeldt

Finding promotional outlets enables you to market your novel or other writing to specific markets at little to no cost. What is required is taking the time to think things through. What organizations do you belong to, or have a relationship with?

Clubs such as Rotary, Kiwanis, Zonta, Lions, and others are often looking for speakers. If you get invited, have a copy of your book as a door prize and bring more copies along to sell after the meeting and your presentation. It is a promotional outlet requiring some of your time in return for potential sales and for visibility with potential buyers.

One member of the Guild, H.G. Watts, wrote about a character related to another religious figure. She was interviewed about the story on WFRV-TV in Green Bay and recently appeared in a feature article about the book in The Compass which is a publication of the DIocese of Green Bay.

Alumni associations–either high school or college–offer publications which may afford a promotional outlet to tout your work. Craft a media release (so it looks official) and forward it to the editor for consideration. Fraternities and sororities offer another avenue for free publicity. If you have books at a book store or cafe, offer them a book signing to help bring customers in and promote sales of your book…and others.

Also, think about your favorite magazines and read about what news they consider. Again, the media release is an excellent way to make your plea look professional. Every chance to gain promotional credibility also builds your reputation as an author.

On Media Releases

Think teaser when you put together a media release. It contains enough information to tell the editor that your submission is news worthy…and teases them to want more details. At the least, it can be printed verbatim in the newspaper, magazine, newsletter, or journal.

Create a catchy headline, centered near the top of the page and in bold. Releases should be one page. At top left goes date, when it can be released, and contact information (name and phone number).

The first paragraph gives the who, what, where, why, and when with a variant being a teaser comment from a respected individual or someone who has read your book and gave you a good quote (perhaps one you wrote for them). Get the rest of the information out there in double-spaced format and end with -30- at the bottom.

These tips make your media release look professional, and gain credibility.

Featured post

Writing Exercises and Prompts

By Lawrence Wilson

Whenever I experience a lack of motivation, ideas, or energy (which sometimes occurs daily), I look over my collection of exercises and prompts to help get started.

Going back to my high school typing class, I did manage to type 40 or so words a minute without looking at the keys. Using this tool as a writing exercise, I sit quietly for a few minutes and then begin to type. Eyes closed. Letting any and everything that fires through the neurons wind up on paper.

If I don’t lose my place on the keyboard, it usually ends with a jumble of words and phrases that may or may not resemble a theme. It really doesn’t matter. It’s spontaneous, gets the mind and fingers working in synch. Most of the time, it gets deleted afterward. 

Another exercise is the six-word memoir. One of the more famous of these, “For sale, baby shoes, never worn.” (Ernest Hemingway). My own: “Hearing the call, afraid to answer.” Or “I married up, she did not.”

Word prompts are much the same kind of mental exercise for writing. These can either be timed or have a defined word count. I try to make it to 500 words.

 I have just perused through some old prompts and found some that are rather good and could be developed.

‘Pitching a Frog’, for example. I don’t even remember what the prompt was, but it has the makings of an excellent short story. Another I found, ‘The Secrete Planet’. I called it “Orangetang”, a collection of all the citrus fruit drinks the astronauts couldn’t stomach and thus, jettisoned them so NASA wouldn’t find out. All prompts do not a story make.

Others have made it into the collection of my book, ‘Catching Chickens’. ‘The Door’, ‘Friends’ (the prompt was something about seeing a man on a ledge).

There are many sources of prompts and exercises available on the Web. Here are just a couple of them.

  • ‘The Author’s Publish Compendium of Writer’s Prompts’, http://www.authorspublish.com/writing-prompts-compendium/
  • Writer’s Digest Magazine has many links to prompts. In one contest, they provide the photo, and you write the first storyline.  The winners are published in the next issue.
  • As with anything else writing, all you must do is enter the keywords, “writer prompts,” and AI will find more than you ever wanted to know.
Featured post

Cover Art

By Terry C. Misfeldt

In this day and age when naysayers believe print books are going the way of dinosaurs, it is ever more important that the cover art of your book grabs a potential reader’s attention.

Print on demand (POD) publishing today demands even more that your artwork is appealing since your book will most likely have a soft cover. That means paper instead of a stiffer, non-printable binding.

Now, if you are getting published in hard cover, there will be a wrap-around cover which will still require cover art. Even E-books have a need for cover art.

How do you create cover art that sells? I have long held the belief that copy sells while art enhances, but selling books with cover art requires both.

Romance writers know their cover art needs to show couples in a passionate embrace. Poets have more latitude in what graces their covers. Science fiction writers need “out of this world” artwork to entice potential readers.

Elements of strong cover art include: 1) Attractive color schemes; 2) Text (like your book title) that stands out from the background and uses an appropriate font; 3) Images that convey the essence of your book and entice people; 4) Catchy blurbs to garner attention; and, 5) a Professional image of you, the author.

Consider hiring a professional graphic artist to create your cover. Many publishing companies have cover artists on staff to assist you in that process…often at a steep cost. An option I employed with my first novel was contacting the local university’s graphic arts department to see if any students wanted to attack my cover. After several drafts and a few hundred dollars, I got an excellent (IMO) cover, thanks to Angela Collier. Can you guess what the novel is about?

Earning Independence

By Terry C. Misfeldt

The Fourth of July is marked in the United States of America as Independence Day. It is intended to be a celebration of our country’s freedom from the once-tyrannical rule of Great Britain when our nation was a colony of the British Empire.

Our independence was earned by those who fought in the Revolutionary War and our founding fathers who created our nation’s Constitution.

As President Ronald W. Reagan said: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it along to our children in our bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States when men were free.”

Writers, especially those of us who live in the United States, have the freedom to write what we want without fear of retribution…provided what we write is not libelous. It is also our duty to do our research and provide credit where credit is due when quoting from another work or copyrighted material. Permission should be obtained for the copyright material, too. In other words, independence is something to be earned.

Even though we have the privilege of independence in America, it is not something to be taken for granted. Like trust, it must be earned.

Enjoy the Fourth of July! Remember that freedom is not free, either. It must be earned like a child wanting to drive your car.

Season Your Writing

By Terry C. Misfeldt

The only way you could put paprika on your writing is if you printed your work, laid it on a table, and got out the paprika. Same with salt, pepper, garlic powder, or some other spice. What we’re sharing is how to spice up your story with a season of the year.

Winter, especially in northern climes, creates numerous opportunities for stories. It can mean snowmobiling and perhaps running out of gas in the middle of a forest or finding a secluded spot in the woods you’d never find without a snow machine.

A heavy snowfall could isolate a community and draw neighbors closer together as they deal with food shortages and heating issues. It can add intrigue to your story and make life difficult for characters, or enable them to have fun like making snow creatures or starting snowball fights.

The point here is to think about the time of year you’re dealing with in your story. Winter and cold temperatures mean your characters must dress more warmly or cozy up to a crackling fire. Summer means warmer temperatures and less clothing or spending time at the beach or poolside with a sweet iced tea.

Fall can be about football, trees blossoming with colored leaves, leaves rustling on the dry ground, or school swinging back into session. Walks in the woods arm-in-arm with a loved one is romantic in autumn, as is spring and the budding of trees and flowers.

If you have a favorite season, consider employing what you like most about the time of year in your story…maybe as how one of your characters shares your perspective as their own. And, perhaps, one of your antagonists may despise that same season you love and triggers that character’s animosity toward your protagonist. Maybe…

Getting Noticed

By Jean Baxter


Someone asked the question on our writer’s Facebook page if anyone has tried donating their book to one of the neighborhood “Free Libraries”?

I hadn’t, but I have gone to several of those little libraries and put my bookmarks in the books already there. I also put my bookmark in every book I check out at the public library—I don’t know if they just throw them away, but it’s worth a try.

And I have donated my book to two of the public libraries and also to two high school libraries. Has any of this done any good? I don’t know.


So, today when I went on my daily walk, I brought along one of my books. I put a note on the inside cover stating I was a local author and would appreciate it if my book could be circulated around the neighborhood. I mentioned this book and the others I have written are set in northeast Wisconsin. And, of course, the plea for a review if they read it.


As I approached my targeted neighborhood free library, I saw a man shoveling the driveway right near the box. As I went to add my book to the collection, he said, “It’s getting so full I’m going to have to sort through and throw some out.”


“Oh, please don’t throw this one out,” I pleaded, “I wrote it!” He came right over and took it from me.


“My wife and I are always looking for something to read, I’ll bring it right in!” We chatted a little more and I left feeling really good. Who knows, maybe I will get a review out of it yet!


Jean Baxter
Author of: Salvageable
Unfathomable
That Forgiveness Thing

Winter Isolation & Writing

By Terry C. Misfeldt

What do you do when a blizzard hits and you are isolated from the rest of the world?

When a recent snowstorm dumped more than one foot of snow on our community, I could not get my front door open. Sure, I had other means of egress but the first thing that came of mind–after removing the snow, of course–was that it was a perfect time to do more writing.

Winter in Wisconsin has a tendency to isolate us. It’s either too cold to go out or the snow and ice makes driving hazardous. And there’s only so much television you can watch before going stir crazy!

Whether you grab a pen and spiral notebook to make notes or plop yourself at the keyboard and type away at breakneck speed, winter is a great time to write. Personally, I have set a goal of once again writing 1,000 words a day during 2024. Just keeping a daily journal piles up that many words on average.

Working on a draft of a novel or jotting down memories for a memoir, writing can give you a sense of purpose during the long winter months. It’s also a time to organize files, go through your library and get your affairs in order. Once warmer weather comes back, your mind and body will tell you it’s time to get outside again.

Weather, while seclusion can be productive for writing, should not keep you from getting outdoors and enjoying the cleansing nature of snow or the briskness of chill winds. Exercise is good for writers despite the adage about seats in seats.

Wrapping this up, I just noticed something about the first word in each of these paragraphs. What word works with winter weather? Did you get the clue?

Frog Wisdom #3

Playing With Words

Frog Wisdom

By Dorothy Seehausen

“The horse raced past the barn fell.” Sound familiar? This is a classic example of what’s known as a garden path sentence, in which the initial interpretation of the sentence’s meaning is wrong because it contains syntactic ambiguity in the first half of the sentence, creating syntactic inconsistency with the rest of the sentence. Thus, multiple possible interpretations. “The horse that raced past the barn fell.” Better?

          Garden path sentences often pop up in our first drafts. Not very many writers can coordinate the right brain’s creativity with the left brain’s editing tasks at the same time. Wouldn’t that be sweet – your first draft would come out completely edited, putting thousands of professional editors out of work!

          In the real world, our goal as writers is to get the story from inside our head to inside the reader’s head. Being able to recognize your own garden path sentences is an excellent editing tool when you’re down into the weeds of line editing.

          Here are some more examples from Effectiviology, which is actually a website about psychology and philosophy:

          The old man the boat.

          The girl told the story cried.

          The complex houses married and single soldiers and their families.

          We painted the wall with cracks.

Happy Writing from the Frog!

Check out my latest short story “Trace” in the October issue of The Mantelpiece Magazine at themantelpiece.org.

Frog Wisdom #2

The ABC’s of Editing

Frog Wisdom

By Dorothy Seehausen

        Remember the saying, “Those who can write, write; those who can’t, edit.”? As an English teacher and long time wielder of the dreaded red editing pen, I have found both with characteristic challenges. I would hope, however, that whoever is critiquing my work knows a little something about what makes a good story.

            Why, then, does editing one’s work seem so daunting? I believe it is because the creative aspect that we enjoy so much with our first drafts is missing when we start to edit, and we are faced with the application of a plethora of rules, directions, best practices, and….worst of all….the impending death of passages of some of our best work. These are the unkindest cuts of all.

To ease the task, I am finding critiques and feedback from writer friends an immense aid. To have objective eyes of a beta reader or colleague or even a supportive family member reading your final draft creates objective responses your first draft eye often misses.

Keep in mind the three kinds of editing: developmental (story structure); line editing (I call this wordsmything, finding the right word for the right job); and the final proofreading edit even your spell checker misses. They are all different tasks with different goals.      

The most important consideration I have found is to develop a system you can adhere to. Read editing blogs. Find out how the pros edit. Use checklists. And take those feedback notes seriously, clicking off what you the author agree with, and what you don’t. There is no greater feeling than having a polished piece all your own ready to submit to the world eagerly awaiting your prose!

Happy Writing from the Frog!

Check out my latest short story “Trace” in the October issue of The Mantelpiece Magazine at themantelpiece.org.