Writing Unleashed with Laura M. Harkins

I found myself reading the oddest thing the other day. Ok, maybe not odd considering I'm a bibliophile. I mean, if it has words, I'm taking a moment to read it. Even if it's directions on a shampoo bottle or the back of a cereal box. So, I was sitting at the counter along the window at the Chipotle near my house shoveling a carnitas bowl into my mouth staring at my cup of Mr. Pibb. I first noticed this picture of a woman with wild hair flowing around her. I can relate, so my interest was peaked. I twisted the cup in my hand, following her hair to see where it ended. That's when I saw it. A two-minute story. I was stoked. Not only did I get an easily digestible story, but it was written by a well-known author. I almost fell off my stool. Apparently, it's an initiative called Cultivating Thought. A clever idea to make the thoughts and words of a unique and talented group of thought leaders, authors and comedians more accessible to a larger population of p...

GUESS THE TRUE STATEMENT & WIN JESSICA BELL'S THRILLER, WHITE LADY ! (Statement #54) To celebrate the release of Jessica Bell's latest novel, WHITE LADY , she is giving away an e-copy (mobi, ePub, or PDF) to the first person to correctly guess the one true statement in the three statements below. To clarify, two statements are lies, and one is true: The first novel Jessica Bell ever wrote was ... a. published b. purposely deleted from her computer c. accidentally lost What do you think? Which one is true? Write your guess in the comments, along with your email address. Comments will close in 48 hours. If no-one guesses correctly within in 48 hours, comments will stay open until someone does. Want more chances to win? You have until October 31 to visit all the blogs where Jessica will share a different set of true and false statements on each one. Remember, each blog is open to comments for 48 hours only from the time of posting. If you win, you will be n...

Winchester  I welcomed a new member to my family this week. A polydactyl or Hemingway kitten called Winchester (homage to Supernatural ) . His brother Tennant is still getting used to him, but they're both such love bugs it shouldn't take long. Tennant & Winchester So, in celebration, I bring to you a little motivational writing tool I found on Electric Literature's Facebook page: Written? Kitten!  You write 100 words, then a picture of a kitten appears. You write 100 more words, another picture of a kitten appears. Mind blown! Enjoy!!

Catching an Employer's Eye in 150 Characters or Less A few months ago I applied for a writing job, that I subsequently did not get, that required me to sell myself in 150 characters or less. In this fast past world where publishers and bloggers format their articles to fit on a cell phone screen or people discuss their lives, adventures, and mindless dribbles in 140 characters, I wasn't surprised.  A challenge nonetheless… So, I tried to stay with the food theme of my cover letter, more or less because I couldn't think of another angle at the time. It came out all right. Here's what I submitted: Combine an infectious laugh, creativity, and self-motivated work ethic in a large bowl. Pour into any sized work environment. Watch me flourish. My best attempt to deliver a succinct list of my most important qualities and abilities along with showcasing my writing ability. I look at it now and see a dozen ways to improve it. Woulda, co...

Over at Tor.com  Stubby the Rocket talks about The Story Museum's newest exhibit : photographs of British writers and storytellers dressing up as their favorite children's lit characters. Neil Gaiman chose Badger from The Wind in the Willows . What a fun idea! I always loved Ottie and the Star by Laura Jean Allen. An adventurous little fellow who meets all kinds of new sea animals on his journey to find the star. I still have the book report I wrote in first grade. So, if I had the chance to dress up as my favorite children's lit character, I believe it would be Ottie. A close second would be Charlotte  Scarlet Monster from a book whose name eludes me   Scarlet Monster Lives Here by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat and illustrated by Dennis Kendrick, but is hiding  I found in a box somewhere in my parent's attic. Which character from your childhood would you dress up as?

It's been well over a year, 16 months to be exact, since I entertained the blogging world with my dazzling prose (hahahah!). Life. What a pain in the ass. She played with me like a cat with it's prey, setting off every one of my triggers. Grasped between her teeth, I went limp. I woke up on the ground. My face scraped up with pebbles imbedded in the cuts. Looking up, I saw her  standing above me, pointing her well-manicured finger in my face while her shoulders bounced with laughter. She takes pleasure in my pain. This past year, in particular, has been incredibly challenging. I know there's more strength hidden inside me. And it's time to look inward and recharge. During my hiatus, I kept busy reading fiction, reading craft books to improve my writing, and writing when my schedule and procrastination allowed. I burned sage to shoo away all the negative energy surrounding me and created some new goal: finishing my current WIP (stuck at Chapter 9) and researc...

Source I needed something different to do than watch T.V. when I came home from work tonight, so I scoured the Internet for literary news. Tom Hanks came up. Surprisingly. He did a poetry slam on 'Late Night with Jimmy Fallon'. Hilarious! It brings me back to pizza Friday's and TGIF with my parents and little sister in the glorious 90's. I admit I cringe whenever I catch a clip of Full House, but I loved it at the time. Bless my parents for sitting through those episodes. Source Tom's bit also reminded me a little of Mike Myer's in So I Married An Axe Murderer with his Woman poem. What a great movie! The links are below. Enjoy! Tom Hanks Mike Myers

As a novice writer, I spend every moment buried in novels that evoke just about every emotion from me. My favorite novels, besides mysteries, are literary fiction by authors like Jhumpa Lahiri and Barbara Kingsolver, who sit at the top of my list of all-time favorites. Whenever I read one of Barbara Kingsolver’s novels it always feels as though she’s speaking directly to me. It feels silly to say that I admire her characters and look to them for inspiration, but they’re the ones I connect to the most. Not real people. (Perhaps that’s why writing feels so natural to me.) I see bits of me mirrored in her characters Taylor ( The Bean Trees ) and Codi/Cosima ( Animal Dreams ). Their stories aren’t identical to mine. I just know exactly how it feels to run away in search of something, looking for a place to belong. Their dilemmas and life questions push away my loneliness and fill me with hope that if they could make it through tough times so can I. Barbara also keeps ...

The silliness is spilling out of me today. I've got my Dexter's Laboratory t-shirt on and exciting ideas for my WIP skipping around my mind making me caffeine-jittery to the point I'm knocking things over in my apartment. Granted, the inability to stand up on my two feet is nothing new, I can barely contain the the surge of passion. So, before I destroy everything I own, I thought I would sit down and share something I stumbled across on Tor.com (I'm a huge fan of the sci-fi website) and, then, get to writing. Last week, I wrote about serialized fiction and whether it had a place in our literary world anymore on the Bucks County Writers' Group blog. Then, I came across the first few chapters of Catherynne M. Valente's middle grade novel The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There . Tor.com serialized the first 5 chapters of the sequel to Valente's first Fairyland book, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making . ...

Do we really need an excuse to have fun with books? I think not.  From what I understand, this unofficial game of International Book Week, possibly started on Google+, asks you to grab the closest book to you, open to page 52, and post the fifth sentence on the page. Do not include the title.  "There's no harm in flirting." Hint. It's one of these.  Post your fifth sentence in the comments below! 

Winning free books rocks my socks. I love it! My favorite part is walking into the vestibule I share with my downstairs neighbor to find a brown box with a mailing label addressed to me. I giggle. Then frantically futz with my keys to get two sets of doors open to get into my apartment, grab the scissors from the knife block, quickly cut open the box, and gently pull out my books. Butterflies fill my stomach with the weight of the book in my hands, the smell of the paper, the intricate world, fascinating characters, and thought-provoking story waiting to be discovered. The whole point of becoming a writer for me was to pass on the wonderful experience of diving into a book and getting lost in the author's imagination and words. I want give readers a story they'll enjoy. I'm still in the crafting process. In the meantime, I have a few new additions to my library courtesy of mshatch over at mainewords . Thanks! I can't wait to start reading.

I dreamt last night. And in this dream, I found myself in a leather jacket leading the investigation of a heinous murder case that took place in a high-rise apartment building. It was my first case as a detective and I had to prove myself. In true Laura fashion, it took me 10 minutes to find a walkie-talkie that worked and I got stuck in the elevator trying to reach the 11th floor with no success. I woke up when I not only couldn't get to the 11th floor, but also couldn't get off the damn elevator. Thoughts bounced around my head as I laid in bed...could I do this in real life? No. I'm the farthest thing from an authoriatrian. Then I thought how that might segue into my stories. I tend to gravitate towards writing stories with amateur sleuths, characters that aren't tethered to strict rules that police must obey. So, it might be time to push through the comfort zone and try giving one of the characters in my WIP a more authoritarian role to contrast the main charact...

Drumroll please... Blood Fugue, Moonsongs Book 1 by E.J. Wesley Cover Reveal Party   Author E.J. Wesley is throwing a blog party to celebrate the release of his new book cover and wants you to join in the fun. Jump over to his blog to learn about how you can win some awesome prizes, including $50 toward a cover of your own and advance reader copies of  Blood Fugue . Cover work by Sketcher Girl, LLC -  http://sketchergirlstudios. com/ What's the Story About?   “ Some folks treated the past like an old friend. The memories warmed them with fondness for what was, and hope for what was to come. Not me. When I thought of long ago, my insides curdled, and I was left feeling sour and wasted.” Jenny Schmidt is a young woman with old heartaches. A small town Texas girl with big city attitude, she just doesn’t fit in. Not that she has ever tried. She wears loneliness like a comfy sweatshirt. By the age of twenty-on...

I'm selfishly engrossed in a story about second chances I'm currently writing, and I'm loving every minute of it. So, today I want to leave you with something fun to do when you need a breather. Keep writing fellow scribers!   First, determine your personality type (if you don't know already) by taking the FREE MBTI test  here . Then, find out what novel character you're most like by checking out  Huffington Post 's  16 Fiction Book Characters' Myers-Briggs Personality Types . I'm an  ENFJ . My fiction character match-up is Charles Damay from  Tale of Two Cities  by Charles Dickens.  Who did you match up with? 

Blue Ridge Mountains One sure thing in this life, and this writing life, is you will face obstacles everyday. I'm about to reach the top of one mountain I've been climbing for two months. I'm at the point when muscles scream in pain and exhaustion slips into delirium, and it takes everything you have left to just lift your foot and take another step. Tomorrow is my last day at one of my part-time jobs, which will end an almost two month stint of working 7 days a week. It didn't leave me much time to sit down in front of my computer and write. So, because I made the decision to commit to my writing, I pushed through and wrote when ever I could. Long hand became my method, instead of the white keys of my beloved purple laptop, and I pushed through to make some serious progress on a short story. This challenge strengthened my resolve for the next challenge that lays ahead of me. It revealed, if I keep lifting my foot regardless of the pain, lack of sleep, and hopel...

I know. There's a lot going on today. Life is easier when the posts write themselves. So, there's lots of promotional fun going on with E.J. Wesley, Christine Rains, and the Bucks County Writers Group, and I'm super excited to share it all with you. First , E.J. Wesley over at The Open Vein is gearing up for his book cover real at the end of August and needs some writerly help getting the word out. Stop on over and sign up to help a fellow writer share the product of determination and hard work! Call To Arms Secondly , Christine Rains' paranormal romance novella, FEARLESS, released yesterday and she's holding a kick-ass blogfest. All you have to do is pull your childhood monster(s) out of the dark recesses of your mind and write about them on your blog.  What Was Your Childhood Monster Blogfest Here goes... My childhood monster didn't take on a corporeal form like the satiny clown in Robbie's bedroom in Poltergeist or a hunched over sinewy cre...

YA Fest at the Easton Area Public Library in Pennsylvania kicks off on Saturday, August 4th. I'm super excited for more than one reason. First, I have the ENTIRE day off from work. Woohoo! Second, I get to take a mini road trip with my writing buddy, Alex . Road trips always promise laughter, good music, and unforgettable memories. Top that off with two crazy writers, and I'm bound to love every minute. Third, I get to immerse myself in a free writing event and meet new writer friends. Hanging with like-minded folk helps the creative juju start moving, especially when you need a kick in the pants to get the words on the page. I also enjoy surrounding myself with other writers because it makes conversation a bit easier, especially when you don't have to pick and choose what you say for fear that a non-writer won't have a clue what you're talking about or share your insane passion for the written word and story telling.  So, for the rest of week when I'm n...

Happy Wednesday! We're half way closer to Friday. I'm a week and half closer to YA Fest in Easton! And I'm putting the finishing touches on a Readers Write piece (Trying Too Hard) for The Sun magazine due at the end of the month. At this point, I haven't mastered the art of balancing two jobs with writing, but I'm getting closer. So, today I want to leave you with  Snippets from HoME titled "Trapped". I've been gathering observations and clips of conversations that stuck with me that I've tinkered with, and I am now sharing with you. Enjoy! Trapped Bumping against the window, the fly takes one more look at the world in hopes of escape before it’s crushed under the force of yesterday’s news.    What's on your busy schedule this week?  

It's 12 o'clock on a Thursday. The end of the week is almost here. I'm exhausted. All I want to do is crawl up on my couch and watch movies while the sun hides behind grey clouds blanketing the world with a moroseness, but I can't. I signed up for a writing contest with my first submission due on Saturday. I've been brainstorming all week, but have yet to get all those great ideas on paper in the form of a story. I work tonight. A double shift tomorrow. All day Saturday. There's not much time left.  Top it all off with craptastic Internet service courtesy of Comcast. Which is why I'm taking advantage of FREE WI-FI at the B&N with its rich people watching environment and swaying to Fiona Apple. The cafe is comfortably filled with people. How desperate I am to take a peek inside their heads to see what's really going while they munch on their "create your own combos", letting the caffeine course through their veins. What are they avoiding? ...

This week's post is coming to you a few days late. Two weeks ago I didn't have a job. Today, I have two jobs. Unfortunately my blog got pushed to the side while I got life straightened out. So, without further ado... It's one thing to place yourself in front of the computer and commit your thoughts and words on your blog. It's a whole other story in terms of getting your post in the hands of readers. This past year I spent time with Pennwriters, Inc. marketing their online courses, writing SEO-friendly website copy for Yellowbook, and marketing my personal blog and my writers' group blog ( check us out ).  I've found many different social media programs and outlets that helped reached a large group of people. I use the following: Ping-In Pingomatic Google+ Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Writer'sCoffeehouseOnline Yahoo! Group Reading and commenting on other blogs Now, the readership for my personal blog is over 100, but my writers' blog needs ...