Saw SVU Special Victims last night–a story about a young woman who was the named author of a work along the lines of 50 Shades. A talk show host rapes her two nights in a row, acting out the fantasies in the author’s book, which was the host’s “defense” as well as the prosecutor’s insight...Read More
September 21, 2012 By Mary Hutchings Reed We talked in July about letting a scene build gradually in order to give the reader the experience of being there, and in August we talked about finding words. Today, I’d like to write about the sentences that hold those words and how to write a sentence in...Read More
Last night LCA’s “family” celebrated its 40th anniversary with a very fun evening planned by Board Member Maureen Collins. The party favor was a copy of “LCA: The First Forty Years,” which I wrote this summer and published with CreateSpace. It was a great project for several reasons, primarily because it gave us a chance to...Read More
Heard a fascinating lecture on memory in novels by Fred Shafer at Off Campus Writers Workshop last week. It was the second in a four part series, and Fred aims to replace “backstory” with “memory.” Backstory is factual and provides needed information in summary; a memory is dramatic and specific and laden with emotion. He...Read More
Just got back from the most beautiful day of golf ever. Bill and I played in The Night Ministry’s annual outing, at Kemper Lakes, home of the 1989 PGA Championship. What a beautiful course….plus I played well. Felt very privileged all day, and, of course, reminded of the superb work done by The Night Ministry...Read More
I write fiction that aspires to be literary, meaning that it’s well-written in terms of vocabulary and style, but not high literary, meaning its fairly accessible to a person of average education and intelligence, but some of both is required. My agent has called it “women’s fiction” because she thinks it is the kind of...Read More
All writers know that if you pay an editor to review your manuscript, they’ll earn their fee and then some. At the suggestion of my agent, I recently solicited the feedback of a “developmental editor” who lacerated 25 pages at a cost of $200. She says she read 50, and she was confident I’d get...Read More
Just pushed the “publish” button on a 193 page paperback, pferfect bound history of Lawyers for the Creative Arts called “LCA: The First Forty Years.” I spent some time going through the existing minutes of this nonprofit legal services organization which provides pro bono services to emerging artists and arts organizations. Found the names of...Read More
I just made 30+ minor edits to Warming Up, the novel which will be published by She Writes Press in the fall. This is after my agent sent her 30+ “pick-ups” over the weekend–little things like commas, and extra spaces, and the occasional clunker of a word. This, after the thing has been read word-for-word...Read More
