Tag: Writing

Featured Writing Addict: Mary Ross Smith

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Mary Ross Smith

Mary was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, the youngest of five children. Her family moved to Los Angeles, California in 1947. Both parents were entrepreneurs. Her mother was the founder of a prominent African-American mortuary in Los Angeles, and her father owned a service station. She grew up in Los Angeles and spent most of her young years in the funeral home where she learned the details and secrets of that business. Her young life was very troubled and sometimes threatened thus causing her to seek refuge among the dead. Mary’s two books use humor and drama to reveal mortuary life.

What’s Mary’s Genre?

Nonfiction & Fiction/Romance

What’s  Mary’s Inspiration?

“I wrote Soul Survivor to heal me, but soon found out that everyone has a story. My goal is to inspire others to know that life is about choices; they can make a change in their life, no matter how bad things are today. Something good can happen tomorrow. Never give up!“

What are Mary Ross Smith’s books about?

Soul Survivor

“Soul Survivor explores the depths of human emotions, both real and imagined. A true story of fortitude, an iron will, and looking to the future in the hope that tomorrow will be better than today.“
 

Amazon.com Book Description:

“…explores the depths of human emotions, both real and imagined. That any of us reach adulthood in one piece, emotionally or physically is a miracle of no small proportion. That any of us reach adulthood to contribute back to society and become highly respected in the community is truly a gift of time and place.
 
…a true story of fortitude, an iron will and looking to the future in the hope that tomorrow will be better than today. …nothing less than a story of triumph. “Little Mary” Reese spent her childhood living, working and playing in a funeral home. Her mother, Mrs. Mary (“Big Mary”) Reese, was well known and respected in the African-American community in Los Angeles through the operation of a prestigious black funeral home. Little Mary’s story tells what really happens behind the embalming room doors—the light and dark side of life.
 
[This book] is both humorous and mischievous, and talks of sex, murder, voodoo, preachers and deviate gravediggers. Famous entertainers that passed through Little Mary’s life include Redd Foxx, Lou Rawls, Sam Cooke, Billy Preston and Johnny Cochran. Little Mary was born in 1944 in the South, reared in the Southwest and was often disparagingly referred to as “high-yellow.” During racial tensions of the ‘50s and ‘60s, Little Mary found her hue to be a major issue but not her only problem.
 
Mary’s mother caused her to endure life-threatening situations due to her drinking and wild ways. Little Mary’s childhood experiences, the mental and physical abuse faced each day, led her to believe that her only true friends were the dead people in the funeral home. Indeed, Little Mary received a BS degree (Be Smart) at an early age. It was the only way she knew to survive. Little Mary’s story is an unlikely but revealing peek into the unexpected and in the end, truly a story of a Soul Survivor.”
 
 
SOS
“Challenge you to look at the person behind the pulpit!“
 

 

 

 

 

To reach Mary Ross Smith, buy her books, or schedule a book-signing event:

Tell her you heard about her on editingaddict.com!

Your Plot Needs Planning

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[found on fictionfactor.com; by Lee Masterson]

Effectively Outlining Your Plot

“Have you ever had an idea for a novel, and then just sat down and began writing without knowing exactly where the story was going?

It happens to everyone at some point, but most people begin to realize that the events in your plotline get confused, or forgotten in the the [sic] thrill of writing an exciting scene. There are those who continue to write on, regardless, fixing any discrepancies as they work, or (worse!) those who do not check that events are properly tied in place to bring their stories to a satisfying conclusion.

And then there are those writers who believe that creating a plot-outline is tantamount to “destroying the natural creative process”. The belief is simple; by writing it out in rough form, you’ve already told the story, so the creative side of you will not want to write it again.

Whichever type of writer you are, creating a simple, inelegant outline to follow s not the same thing as already writing the story, and it could save you an enormous amount of time and rewriting later.

The purpose of an outline in this case is to be certain that your storyline is not straying too far from the original idea. It is also a useful tool if you need to determine if your idea is big enough to be developed into a novel-length work, and not left as a short story or novella.

Your outline should be a simple reminder that, no matter how many events or characters or situations arise, your main theme will never get lost in the jumble of scenes.

Of course, this brings us to the problem to what was discussed above. There are writers who have a tendency to over-plot, thus really killing any spontaneity as far as the writing process goes. The biggest difficulty here is forcing your characters to go through motions that may not fit into their personality make-up simply to fit into your pre-existing, overly planned plotline.

So how do you strike a fair balance between aimless writing and over-plotting? There are several ways to accomplish this….”

To read the complete article from Lee Masterson, click here.

[found on http://www.fictionfactor.com/articles/outlining.html]

Poems, Lyric Thyself

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[found on songlyricist.com; by Carla Starrett]

“Poets in the modern world do not enjoy the elevated social status they did a century or two ago.

Wordsworth, Byron, Keats and Shelley were the rock stars of their time. Their poetic skills earned them adulation, celebrity and even the occasional touch of wealth.

These days, poems and poetry are sadly relegated to sparsely attended coffeehouse readings or the obscure pages of small literary magazines.

On the other side of the proverbial coin, there are wonderful opportunities in today’s music industry for talented poets – at least those who successfully adapt their writing style to song lyric writing.

Songs are the popular lyrical medium of our time. That’s where status and the bigmoney is for today’s poets.

Adapting Poems Into Song Lyrics

There are many examples of poets who have turned their personal poetry into successful song lyrics.

Most everyone’s heard of lyricist Bernie Taupin, Elton John’s famous co-writer. One of these talented fellows without the other may have labored in the shadows of obscurity.

Yet, by combining their specialized talents, they were able to write hundreds of great songs, and extrmely [sic] popular songs. In the process, they become millionaires!

The lesson is clear: ambitious 21st Century poets who wish to connect with the popular culture and mass audiences will want to learn how to write lyrics.

Which leads to this question: Can poets successfully turn their talents to writing song lyrics?

Answer: For talented poets willing to adapt their writing styles to the craft of lyric writing, the answer is definitely yes!”

To learn more from Carla Starrett on how to adapt your poems into song lyrics, click here.

[found on http://www.songlyricist.com/lyricorpoem.htm]

Two Words? Oops, One Word

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[found on quickanddirtytips.com; by Bonnie Trenga Mills]

“Do you want to get ahead (one word) or are you cooking an esoteric dish and want to get a head (two words)? That one little space can make a big difference in meaning: Either you are moving past others in business or you are purchasing a skull…..

When it comes to pairs such as “apart” with no space and “a part” with a space, the spelling doesn’t matter when you’re talking; both sound the same. When you write the words, however, you might forget to add a space, or you might add an unnecessary one. This problem crops up with all kinds of words, but in this episode we’re focusing on words beginning with the letter “a.”

Words That Start With “A”

Here’s a short list of pairs like “ahead” and “a head”: “alight” and “a light,” “abuzz” and “a buzz,” “apart” and “a part,” and, lastly, “ahold” and “a hold.” As you can see from this list, the one-worders beginning with “a” can be various parts of speech: “ahead” is an adverb, “alight” is a verb,” and “abuzz” is an adjective. The two-worders, on the other hand, consist of an article—the word “a”—and a noun: “light,” “buzz,” “part,” and “hold.” True, these words can sometimes be verbs, but when something follows the article “a,” it’s a noun (unless something such as an adjective comes between the article and the noun, as in “a delicious cake”).

“Alight” Versus “A Light”

Let’s see these four pairs in action. The first two—“alight”/“a light” and “abuzz”/“a buzz”—are the easy ones. You could say, “That annoying bee wants to alight on my nose.” This means the bee wants to land on your nose, and there’s no space in “alight.” If you say, “He turned on a light”—with a space—that means he was no longer enveloped in darkness.

“Abuzz” Versus “A Buzz”

In keeping with the bee theme, here’s our next example: “I heard a buzz.” A quick test for those listening: Is there a space or not? Well, yes, there is! “A buzz” with a space means “a buzzing noise.” “Abuzz” with no space is an adjective that means alive with activity, as in “The room became abuzz when the grammarian entered.”

To read the entire article from Grammar Girl, click here.

[found on http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/a-hold-or-ahold]

Webinar: Meet the Editor

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Editing Addict’s Billi Joy Carson is joining A Book’s Mind in a free webinar on June 19, 7pm (AZ time). Come join her as she shares about the editing process, and discusses its value in the publishing industry.

Registration:

When:

    • Thursday, June 19, 2014

    • 7:00 PM – 7:30 PM (Mountain Time – Arizona)

Where:

Die Not, My Adverb—Overwhelm Not

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[found on huffingtonpost.com; by Maddie Crum]

In Defense of Adverbs

“Like like and other filler words, certain adverbs have saturated our speech and our writing, making once-meaningful phrases seem totally vapid. The idea that adverbs are just extraneous fluff has led to a smear campaign against them, and it’s become common to suggest axing the part of speech altogether in order to make writing more powerful. This forceful call for more forceful writing is misguided; adverbs can be phonetically pleasing, can imbue sentences with subtlety, and should not be entirely shunned.

First, a refresher: What does an adverb do? It tells us more about a verb. If a character is running from point A to point B, “he ran” is a description that doesn’t sufficiently set the scene. How did he run? Quickly? Scatteredly? “He ran quickly and scatteredly” is less powerful than “he scampered,” an adverbless sentence that conveys the same point more succinctly. And so, many writers have spoken vehemently against the use of adverbs.

This is unfortunate because when used well, adverbs serve an important purpose, and can enhance writing rather than detract from it.”

[found on http://www.huffingtonpost.com/madeleine-crum/in-defense-of-adverbs_b_4860325.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063]

Not All Is Possessive

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[found on grammarphobia.com; by The Grammarphobia Blog]

 Nouns: Possessive vs Genitive

“Normally, nouns used with numbers to form adjectival phrases are singular, as in “two-inch rain,” “three-year-old boy,” “two-dollar word,” “eight-volume biography,” and “four-star restaurant.”

However, where a plural noun is used by tradition to form such a phrase, it’s generally followed by an apostrophe, as in “the Thirty Years’ War” and “the Hundred Years’ War.”

The plural followed by an apostrophe is also used in phrases like “ten dollars’ worth” or “five years’ experience” or “two days’ time.”

Apostrophe constructions like these aren’t “possessive” in the sense of ownership; strictly speaking, they’re genitive.”

To learn more from grammarphobia.com, click here.

[found on http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2010/08/sui-genitive.html]