The Write Focus

In this episode we have All Things Narration ~ clearly, concisely, professionally ~ explained by the award-winning narrator / producer Scott Ellis of Scott Ellis Reads. From the various unseen and unheard jobs of the narrator before beginning, through major job of recording sessions and re-recording and the pick-ups after, to making the many files easily available for the writer’s use, the role of...

Welcome to Writers on Writing, interviews with active writers to inspire us all for our great start to 2025. In this week’s episode, our focus is Marie Still, an award-winning thriller and horror author. She’s a marketer turned writer in the coronacoaster year. She took the giant step upon the urging of a friend. Marie Still torments her characters from Tampa Bay. She also writes women's fiction u...

Start 2025 with information about tech tools, productivity, and process as well as a few snippets on craft, all from active writers ... and narrators and publishers. Zoom interviews give us this opportunity. Write on!

Our poem for the Christmas holidays has two lessons for all writers. It comes from T.S. Eliot. My introduction to TSE came in college, either a survey course in modern poetry or as part of a literature survey. Professor C. Hines Edwards, dry and erudite, was one of two that I admired for his knowledge of poetry classical and structure-less. He introduced TSE’s “The Wasteland” to us, a long poem kn...

The Write Focus wishes you a Happy Thanksgiving week ~ full of rich holiday food, joyous time with people we love, awkward encounters with other people, and a money blast on Black Friday—which usually extends to Cyber Monday. This episode doesn’t fit with our Fall into Poetry series ~ although it does gift you with poems stuffed with thanks—and not so stuffed. No analysis or advice to writers, jus...

We’re a week to Thanksgiving here in the USofA, and we have not one or two but three poems of gratitude to examine, giving us 6 lessons of Advice for All Writers. These three poems have quirky ways of matching to the holiday, thanks-giving and gratitude. The gratitude doesn’t take the gushing that usually fills most writings about thankfulness. The individual poets present their heartfelt emotion...

When we live our life in the present, being in the moment, we can develop a love-hate relationship with people and things we encounter daily. We don’t “love to hate” these; we love them at some times while at other times we hate them. We may happily encounter and deal with them, then on a day not too far away, we groan and say, “Not today, please, not today.” That contradiction, that contrariness,...

“Share your innermost life,” marketing gurus advise writers, “with your readers, your newsletter folks, with everyone. Make it all public Make it pop-ular.” That’s a certain way to burn out most of your audience, who just want the knowledge you have or just want to be entertained. “Open the window. Let them see into part of your life.” That’s reasonable and rational marketing advice. A window does...

Monsters of all sorts inhabit literature, for they crowd into people’s consciousness whenever we face trials and tribulations. The unnatural monsters, goy and terrifying, gorging themselves without mercy or conscience, these are our nightmares, rarely encountered. The deceptive monsters, the ones that camouflage who and what they are, still gorging themselves, relishing each victim, these inhabit...

Love. Betrayal. Death. Those subjects we discussed in our story-song and in other recent poems, including Christina Rossetti’s particular version of false love and twisted betrayal—Lust that isn’t love, summer friends abandoning her in her self-exile, her false love leaving her to face her trouble alone. When we’ve endured betrayal, our memories of that traitors are as a monster. Monsters need not...

October is a month of changes, of transitions, anticipation of the colors even as summer gives us a few reminders of his warmth. And October ends with All Hallow’s Eve, the evening before a holy day ~ a time of riotous revelry by the forces defiant against God, Father, Creator, Savior. Creeping upon me with the early chill of October mornings was the realization that Christina Rossett should be ne...

We have a theme of Dances of October for this episode ~ although one of our two poems doesn’t mention dancing and the other doesn’t mention October. How are we connecting these two works to that theme? Well, my brain said “Put them together”, and here we are. The first poem is by African-American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. He’s barely anthologized anymore, but that doesn’t mean he should be neglec...

What sparks a love of poetry? The highbrow puzzles of e.e. cummings or the imagism of Ezra Pound. The lyrical music of John Keats or Christina Rossetti. The logical jumps and intellectual gymnastics of the metaphysical poets. The gimmick that marks Ferlinghetti. The emotions that lurk in a Longfellow sonnet. The intriguing story-songs that we just examined last month. None of the above sparked my...

Wine is heady stuff. A simple goblet of wine relaxes us; a mega-pint or a bottle can tip us into trouble. Do you prefer the creamy full-body of a fine cabernet or the bite of a sauvignon blanc? Perhaps a medium red like a spicy Zinfandel or a lighter Riesling? Or a fruiter, sweet-forward wine, like a strawberry wine? Homemade, requiring only fresh strawberries, sugar, yeast, and water? Hi, everyon...

Here’s an odd way to start a conversation about a song: the word moron. Hi all. It’s the third episode in our autumn series Fall Into Poetry. We’ve featured two story-songs (narrative poems) that are ballads, not the modern power ballad of the music world but the literature-based ballad with its focus on the subjects of love, betrayal, and death. This episode’s song is not a ballad, even though it...

Story-songs, like last episode’s “Read my Mind” by Gordon Lightfoot, leave a mark in our memories. Very little is needed to return them to the foreground of our mind. That’s also the case with this episode’s story-song, another ballad, this time for Broadway, written by the fantastic Stephen Sondheim, a great in American stagecraft. I first encountered this song in 1976 as part of my chorus class,...

Every writer is after memorable writing, whatever will strengthen our words and ideas so they haunt our audience. We want our audience to return again and again to our writing, either to recapture that original impact or to puzzle out a question that wasn’t answered. Capture our audience, and they stay with our writing to the end. Satisfy our audience, and they seek more of our writing. This is ou...

Hi, everyone. Welcome to the fourth check-in for the Word Count Challenge with the theme of Surviving that Horrible Week for Writing. I thought I was smart, earlier in this year, when I scheduled a Wednesday to Tuesday trip. The hectic weekend driving would be avoided. When most people would be arriving or leaving, I would be snuggled in and could enjoy. That plan is great for a trip, not so much...

Hello, everyone. It’s the 3rd Check-in for the Word Count Challenge here in August, and we’re discovering problems. I continue to meet my goal of 500 new words daily, no matter the interruptions. I’ve had to write fiction and nonfiction to achieve 500 new words, and other writing tasks are still occurring, all in a mix of daily fun time with family and commitments and responsibilities that I’m pro...

Hi, Everyone. It’s the second check-in for the Word Count Challenge here in August. How have you done? Leave a comment about your goals and successes. I’ve managed to meet my goal of 500 words daily, no matter the interruptions, and they were many. Things tugged at me every day of the past week. The massive part of the day is lost to writing but early mornings and late evenings have saved  me—and...

Old Challenge vs. New Challenge ~ that’s the theme for this week’s episode. We say goodbye to the Summer Writing Challenge, which tracked all the pesky jobs that writers have to do in addition to the writing, and we welcome in the August Word Count Challenge, which is the kind of challenge that writers want to focus on: NEW WORDS ONLY. No sketched words, just an estimate from the Rough, any overag...

Hi, all. It’s the last full week of the Summer Writing Challenge. We’ll have one last day to report in our first August episode. This week, though, finishes out our challenge. Did I succeed? Did I fail? What can I do better? What changes can I make to be more successful in the future? Let’s start with our day-to-day report before we answer those major questions. TIMINGS 00:00 Welcome 00:40 Check i...

Hi, all! It’s our 8th check-in for the Summer Writing Challenge. A little over a week to go to the end of July BUT not the end of the Summer Writing Challenge. I’ve struggled and I’ve soared in this past week. It’s all a matter of juggling the bad with the good to keep a mental balance and motivation. Last Wednesday, first day of our work week, is a perfect example of this juggling act. We cover a...

Hi, all. Time for Check-In #7 of our Summer Writing Challenge with the theme of “What’s Up, Doc?” The challenge this week was to steady up and recover from last week’s losses. Luckily, most of my weekly activities are on hiatus in July although my personal commitment remain strong. A Special BONUS this episode: 9 minutes from Dashiel Hammett on Accurate Details TIMINGS 00:00 Welcome 00:40 Check-in...

Hi, All! Welcome from the Land of the Lost ~ Lost Days, Lost Time, Lost Plans, Lost Chances. That’s me this past week, and I’m still dealing with the aftermath. I’m also scouting the area to find out who infected me. Yes, in a week when I knew I would lose three days before it started—the holiday, you know—I lost three more days because I came down with a horrid respiratory sickness, with coughing...