Published on Monday, June 4, 2012 by admin Coming soon......

Published on Saturday, June 2, 2012 by Harriet Gausman It's hard being a writer. Let's face it, when the dreaded writer's block comes a calling it's like the end of the world. Will I ever write again? Has my muse gone AWOL for good? How will I rebuild momentum? Different writers have different ways of dealing with it. You might just hole up for the duration, cover yourself in a comforter and hibernate. Or maybe you're ...

Published on Sunday, October 9, 2011 by admin Through the years in Second Life® there have been few places I have come to personally admire as the Campus d'Art. It has been the passion of Cecilia Delacroix to piece together this gem of education, history and culture of the great artists of our time. The Campus d'Art comprises a large 4 story museum and 20+ other separate buildings, which are set up to sp...

Published on Sunday, January 16, 2011 by CathyWyo1 Haystack There is little question that writing is a self-reflective process from which we learn about others, ourselves and our world.  It is in this context that the mind engages in a process of deep thought, that writing is a tool of organizing and defining our world.  It is with this thought in my mind that I start this day. Writing takes various forms throughou...

Published on Monday, December 27, 2010 by CathyWyo1 Haystack Blogs can be a phenomenal form of self-expression, of memoir, and providing information online. Blogging allows for an individual writer to pull from other individuals their commentary, collaboration, and insight into the content of the blog. If you are interested in blogging you maybe interested in seeing what other people do on their blogs I will provide y...

Published on Monday, December 6, 2010 by CathyWyo1 Haystack Writer’s Market 2011 is as big a resource to writers as it was before the Internet and I anticipate that it will continue to be so. However like any other large book there is an anatomy to it which the reader/user needs to become familiar with in order to use it effectively. Writer’s Market always seems to start with the how to’s..how to write the all import...

Published on Monday, December 6, 2010 by CathyWyo1 Haystack Entering contests can be a fun way to motivate yourself to write, however there are a few things you should know about contests before submitting your best work to them.  Many contests have very specific guidelines that must be followed in order to meet their standards and not end up in the rejected pile. Some of these require certain residency, such as state re...

Published on Friday, October 22, 2010 by Shon Charisma In its basic definition, setting is a story's time and place. Setting can help illustrate an historical moment or create a story within a particular social context. Years after 9-11, writers began to integrate this horrific event into stories and use hints of the tragedy to reflect societal issues that erupted after the event, such as fear, safety of one's self and ...

Published on Thursday, October 7, 2010 by CathyWyo1 Haystack The web is a great resource for writers, however, there is more than one can ever imagine, and it’s a matter of determining what is good and useful to you as a writer rather than finding information on improving your writing.  Below is a list of websites, a journal, if you will, of what I looked at today. Book in a Week:   Has consistently been named one of t...

Published on Saturday, October 2, 2010 by Shon Charisma Many writers often start a story with a character that has been speaking to them, begging the writers to develop a story around the character. Sometimes, it's good to start with the setting because place, time, history, context plays a lot in how a story might be written. For that reason, I decided to pick a roleplaying locale in Second Life® that is steeped in histo...

Published on Friday, September 17, 2010 by CathyWyo1 Haystack Writing fiction means anything goes?  You can be creative, innovative and think outside the box, anything goes right?  Well not exactly good fiction still requires that the writer demonstrates some degree of authenticity, some measure of accuracy in fact, and does his/her research.   What does research in fiction writing mean?  What and how can the writer do his/...

Published on Friday, September 3, 2010 by Shon Charisma To become a better writer and student of the craft, many writers take to buying books on character, plot, voice, and setting; take to attending workshops; and take to consulting with writing coaches. None of these things are bad; in fact, I do many of these things, and I also coach writers and write articles to help them in many of the areas regarding writing and p...

Published on Thursday, August 5, 2010 by admin FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Steampunk Adventures Magazine Soon to Arrive at Virtual Newsstands Everywhere The partners of Steampunk Adventures in Winterfell Anodyne (http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Winterfell%20Anodyne/46/32/22) have put together their combined talents to publish a new magazine for distribution in Second Life® and via the World Wide Web.  The ...

Published on Friday, July 30, 2010 by CathyWyo1 Haystack In the past several weeks I have been overwhelmed by all the good fortune and things I have to do, not only in real life but Second Life® as well.  My experiences and contacts I have made in Second Life® have done more than enrich my life.   A few months ago a friend of mine suggested that we go together with others and purchase Anna Darwinian’s Steampunk Adven...

Published on Thursday, July 15, 2010 by CathyWyo1 Haystack I am in the process of clearing out, cleaning up and de-cluttering in the anticipation of a move ...I hope the move doesn’t happen, so nevertheless this clean up must happen. In my clean up I found a copy of a 1980 Writer’s Handbook.  I though it might be interesting to provide some tips and tricks from this book, for reflection up on what has changed and what ha...