Interview with Allie Pleiter

An avid knitter, coffee junkie, and devoted chocoholic, Allie Pleiter writes both fiction and non-fiction.The enthusiastic but slightly untidy mother of two, Allie spends her days writing books, buying yarn, and finding new ways to avoid housework. Allie hails from Connecticut, moved to the midwest to attend Northwestern University, and currently lives outside Chicago, Illinois. The “dare [...]

Writing Your Novel Idea

Tuesday Teachings from the archives: I’ve been going back through the wonderful content on Writer…Interrupted and wanted to share the relevant teaching from past posts! Hope you enjoy this new Tuesday feature! This month’s feature: From Idea to The End I wrote fiction unsuccessfully for many years. What boosted me to publication was a class [...]

Mackinac Island: The Perfect Setting for Romance

The website for Mackinac Island, Michigan, contains this fun question: “Is romance in your soul?” On this small island nestled in Lake Huron in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, you can step back in time and tap into a slower pace that allows your inner romantic to escape. The island has the magical quality that I love [...]

How Setting Influences Your Characters

Your story setting should be unique, whether an exotic island, the Deep South, an airport terminal, or a fantasy world.  Consider the following movies: Gone with the Wind, Cast Away, The Terminal, and Lord of the Rings. All of these would be less effective and less memorable without their unique setting. “A novel is a [...]

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

A satire on two generations of Americans and the American dream (or, more accurately, dreams), Jonathan Franzen wrote a book that at times seems more case-study than novel. Because of this, for a good part of the book, the characters seem almost more caricature than individual. Of course, the big twist in the end is [...]

Review: Lucky Baby by Meredith Efken

After years of swearing she’d never be a mother–particularly because she doesn’t want to turn into her mother, who withheld her approval from Meg–Meg longs to adopt a child. She and her husband, Lewis, adopt an older girl from China, desiring both to give Eva a home and to overcome their pasts of emotional family [...]

Choosing Words Carefully

You ever talk to someone who just doesn’t know when to shut the trap and wrap it up? People who take five minutes to say what could be said in thirty seconds? Sure you have. We all have. Some people just have diarrhea of the mouth. I’m sorry, I know that sounds awfully harsh, but [...]

Why I write category series books?

I have been writing for Steeple Hill’s Love Inspired line since 2000 and have enjoyed creating over nineteen Love Inspired and eleven Love Inspired Suspense books, some still to come out in 2009 and 2010. Writing for a category inspirational romance publisher has challenged me and helped me to grow as a writer. I’ve learned [...]

Love Languages

Since this is the month of love and Valentine’s Day, I decided to post about Dr. Gary Chapman’s book, The Five Love Languages, which I recommend to read. I read an interesting book about the language of love we use. In the book, The Five Love Languages, Gary Chapman was insightful and interesting. But most [...]

10 Things I Wish I Had Known by DiAnn Mills

1. Research doesn’t mean a jaunt to the library or sailing through cyberspace. It means a trip into your characters’ lives. 2. Some critics are like boo birds that sit on their lofty power lines and crap (mess) on those beneath them. 3. When I grow up, I will know the difference between lie and [...]

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