Samhain Publishing Ltd. Weblog

True Confessions...

“My name is Kerri, and I steal pens.” (This is where you are all supposed to say: “Hello, Kerri.”)

Okay, I don’t exactly “steal” them; I attract them. They seem to find their way into my pockets, my purse, my tote bags… I swear I don’t put them there. But glancing at my desk right now, I see a collection of black and blue ink pens, all touting their unique heritage: “Home Depot”, “Punjab Indian Cuisine,” “Weight Watchers,” “Advantage for Dogs,” “Bay State Cheer”….

My pen collection bears witness to my daily life: where I shop, where I eat, where I exercise, and where I taxi my children for sports. It also tells the world that I have an unhealthy compulsion. (When was the last time you were given a free pen at the dentist’s office? I have several.)

As a preventative effort, I often tell my students, upfront, to watch their pens, because if they give me one to sign a form, I’m likely to find it on my desk a few hours later. When I borrow a pen from a clerk to write a check, I often comment, “I’ll try to remember not to pocket this…” And yet, my pen cup runneth over….

As it stands, I figure I have three choices: 1) Drive all over the place trying to return these kidnapped writing instruments (Where the heck IS ‘Crystal’s Shoe Shop’, anyway?); 2) Accept my pathology and seek support from others to control my compulsion (Seems like a lot of effort…); or 3) Reframe it.

Today, I like the latter. So…

My name is Kerri. I am a writer with a passion for all things related to the art of putting words on paper… (“Hello, Kerri…”)

Ghosts in my closet...

I have ghosts in my closet. Not the kind that go bump in the night, or even the kind that whisper sweet nothings on the edge of a breeze. My ghosts live in manuscript boxes, forever trapped behind the squiggles of my written words. And they haunt me…

Developing Character

Recently, I’ve been doing a lot more reading than writing. (Before you slap my hands, I should add that I’ve been traveling a lot. I need silence to write, but can read in the middle of chaos. And no, I haven’t tried Selena’s 39-cent tool yet, but plan to!)

One of the things I’ve tuned into is the way a writer develops his/her character. Some of the books I enjoy rely on descriptions of behavior. Memorable characters move in memorable ways (e.g. Quasimodo). Other writers distinguish their characters by their habits (e.g. nail-biters, toe tappers, Ben & Jerry’s bingers…). And still others rely on quirks of voice (e.g. Southern accents, street voice, cop-talk etc.) As a reader, I am most impressed by the latter. If I can ‘hear’ the character’s voice in my head and it sounds distinctly different from all the other characters, I am sucked in. (My favorite example is ‘Lula’ in Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series.) As a writer, I find it easy to develop characters with quirks of dress, habit or behavior. But I find it much more challenging to give them a voice that is unique.

Over the summer, my goals are to listen to the ‘characters’ in my daily interactions (e.g. the homeless man who always asks me if my coffee is hot, the teenager with the six nose rings who watches the neighbor’s cats, and the six year old who thinks she’s sixteen…to name a few), and write as much as I can to practice this skill. Hopefully, you’ll hear some unique voices in my next novel!

What modality of character development do you find most natural? Most challenging? Think about your favorite literary characters and tell me what makes them stand out in your memory.

Early Lessons In Love

She stares at me with heavy-lidded eyes and a sigh of malcontent escapes from between her perfectly heart-shaped, naturally pink lips. “I broke up with Conrad.” Her shoulders slump in defeat and it takes all my will-power not to laugh…

Strawberries In Winter -- New Release

We’ve all been there…

Everything is going fine. You’ve managed to bundle your toddler into his fifteen layers of winter clothing, strapped him into the car seat without pinching his fingers, made it through half of your shopping list by bribing him with goldfish crackers, and managed to keep both shoes on his feet…

Bo-Peep Goes Bad

In the next few weeks I’ll be celebrating my fifteenth wedding anniversary, and my twenty-fifth year of being with my husband. Ours was a relationship doomed to fail.

Co-Writing: How does THAT work?

When I wrote my first novel, I was simultaneously attracted to and repulsed by the experience of solitude.

Sitting at my keyboard, I was reminded of that old TV commercial: Calgon, take me away! It’s easy to lose three, six —who are we kidding? – countless hours when you settle into the comfort of imaginary worlds. I loved my characters, honestly cared about their predicaments, and knew their environments so well I could picture something as small as a hairline crack along the edge of my protagonist’s teacup. My characters were real to me, and I looked forward to spending time with them.

But the flip-side of my experience is not quite so warm and fuzzy: I was lonely.