“Dobyns Chronicles” by Shirley McLain

Reading this chronicle made me reflect on my family values and what I am to leave for my generations to come. Though set at the turn of 1900 century rural Oklahoma and Texas, the core principles of helping out and standing by loved ones above all other priorities present timeless demonstrations of family, love and taking care of each other.

This 260-pager revolves around Charles Kenly Dobyns and his siblings David and Viola who vowed to stick together after the early unfortunate passing of their parents. Physically and morally able as the eldest at 16 years, Charles consistently demonstrated his strong will and fortitude as together they faced their future travails with hope and faith.

The pace and style of narration is captivating. It is a chapter turner, where after having to leave off, I look forward to picking it up again to revel with…

Editing is my favourite part of writing. While I enjoy the free exploration and rush of creativity that comes with writing a first draft, it’s in the edit that I really earn my money. The edit can turn a promising idea into a great idea, can turn lumpen prose into gold. But in order to get the best out of editing, you need six important things.

1 Distance

Have you noticed how much easier it is to spot mistakes or areas for improvement in other people’s books? There’s a good reason for that. As a reader you’re coming to the story fresh, with no insight or foreknowledge of what’s taking place. You can only judge the book by it’s words. With your own book it’s very different. You know everything intimately, not just what is written but the back story, what you are trying to imply and what is left unsaid. You know…

I wanted to share this article with everyone. To me, it’s a gold mine that you can review over and over. I hope it inspires you.

Back in 2011, then Pixar storyboard artist Emma Coats (now freelancing) tweeted 22 rules of storytelling, according to Pixar. Coats learned the ‘guidelines’ from senior colleagues on how to create appealing stories,tweeting the nuggets of wisdom over a 6 week period.

Last week, artist and User Experience Director at Visceral Games (a subsidiary of Electronic Arts), Dino Ignacio, created a series of image macros of the 22 rules and posted them to Imgur and Reddit.

Below you will find the list of image macros along with a text summary of Pixar’s 22 rules of storytelling at the end of the post. Enjoy!

[Sources: Emma Coats, Dino Ignacio, The Pixar Touch]

Recently, while visiting cousins in a small West Texas town, we went to a book sale their local library was having. Actually, the sale was already over, and they were trying to move the books that didn’t go in the sale, so they were letting people buy a grocery bag full of books for five dollars.

For several years now, I’ve enjoyed watching the Jesse Stone made-for-TV movies, which are based on books written by Robert B. Parker. I’ve also enjoyed reading at least one Jesse Stone book for which I haven’t seen a movie, so when I came across a couple of his books, I added them to my grocery bag. Once I finished the Jack Reacher book I was reading at the time, I decided to read one of Parker’s next. The one I picked up wasn’t the Jesse Stone—it was a western called Resolution, about a power…