I Can't Believe She Said That! The Art of Writing Dialog

I am honored to be able to tell you that I'm appearing as a guest columnist at the Murder By 4 blog for writers this week. My article is about writing dialog, apparently one of my strong suits. At least my writers' group keeps telling me that!

Murder By 4 was selected as being in the 101 best blogs for writers by Writer's Digest in 2013.

Click through to read I Can't Believe She Said That! The Art of Writing Dialog.

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Picking up the Quest

It's always a challenge to pick up a project that's been laid aside numerous times. Today was certainly no exception to that.

After a long, long absence from working on it, I started to think again about finishing North Country Quest. This is the sequel to North Country Cache. It will complete the tales of my hikes on the North Country Trail.

There are four chapters done, and a few more partially done. That's a long way from completion. And yet... if I get busy, these chapters are not difficult to write. I just need to refresh my memory.

Today, I assembled all the chapters and partial chapters into one file. I listened to the tape journal for the hike that will be the first story in this volume, and went through the pictures for that hike, all to refresh my memories. Chapter one had been partially written, and I like how I began it, so now, I just need to build on that foundation.

Oh, and I looked up how to transfer all my tape journals to digital. Not difficult... just need to do it.

No cases were assigned to me this week for the insurance job, so I'm determined to use the time to focus on writing again. One day out of one is 100% so far this week!

Chapter 21- Dead Mule Swamp Druggist

Writing continues at way too slow of a pace, but at least it's happening at some speed rather than not at all. Chapter 21 done, and the next few are planned out.

And, you can see that I've improved the cover quite a lot as well. Maybe a few more tweaks yet.

Thanks to the new subscribers to the email letter.

Enjoy a piece of Chapter 21:

   "Right. And I don't recall that Ham was known for disappearing for long stretches of time," Jerry added.
   "Do you see this money as a motive for murder?" Cora asked. "It couldn't have been a huge amount."
   "We don't know that," Jerry said. "How many times have you read about people living in dumps who died with thousands of dollars hidden in the walls."
   "If he didn't have it really well hidden, it's gone now... into the hands of the dognapper Manny or Myron or whatever his name is. And I searched pretty much everywhere except a couple of outbuildings," I pointed out. "Of course, I didn't take the walls apart."

You can find the first four Anastasia Raven Stories at Smashwords or Amazon