Hello SErs. Harmony here. Have any of you heard of a walled garden for fiction? I hadn’t until last year. And once I saw it in one place, I came across it in a whole load of other places. Other names it goes by are Magic Garden and Secret Garden. With my current WIP, I created a whole new world based on settled space and realised I could use this idea for lots of other books and short stories. That would be my secret garden.

A walled garden is a body of work you build that shares themes, tone, structure, and word building.

Why does your garden need a wall around it?

Because this will become your secret playground. A safe place for your muse to hang out and have fun. … Without having to build a whole new world, etc., every time you start something new. It’s something that’s…

Hi, SEers. Mae here hoping everyone had a wonderful Valentine’s Day! Today, I’m rolling out a topic that’s dear to my heart—unplugging. In our technology-crazed, social media-driven, always-on-world, unplugging is a necessity. Did you know there is even a National Unplug Day in the U.S.?  March 1-2 sundown to sundown has been declared the National Unplug day in 2019 for those pledging to go a full twenty-four hours device free. You can find more information on this website and even download a free tool kit with activity guides and conversation starters.

You know what that means? Unplugging has risen to such a level of difficulty, it’s now viewed as a challenge. How sad is that?

Last August, my husband and I attended a family reunion out of state. It was a fun time built around an Oktoberfest theme (my father’s side of the family is German) and while the adults…

Hi Gang. Craig here again, breaking rules left and right. I’m surprising my colleagues today, because I’m supposed to pick apart a book cover. We have assignments on Fridays, and I don’t feel like it today.

We can learn a lot from covers, but I think that knowledge is finite. We’ve talked before about the rule of thirds, the S curve, and other visual elements. Besides, I have something else I want to talk about today.

I rewatch a lot of movies with an author’s eye. In other words, I dissect them to learn things. This got me to thinking some of you might appreciate bits of what I look for. Films are like the Cliff’s Notes of stories. A lengthy work is depicted in a short time frame on the big screen.

A few weeks ago I re-watched Sherlock Holmes. This is the 2009 version with Robert Downey Jr…