Jencey's Writer's Corner

As I sit here writing this post, I’m reminded that a year ago today, I was participating in a walk for ALS for my childhood friend, Kevin. It was a glorious fall day, full of the color with the leaves changing. The backdrop was the picturesque, Chicago city skyline. Kevin’s team, of well over a hundred, including family, friends and colleagues, joined countless other teams to raise awareness and show support for this debilitating disease. Exactly one year later, he is no longer here with us. He passed away a month ago and now, I officially know more people that have died from ALS than any other disease. Any diagnosis of any illness is devastating to hear. I have several friends that have been fighting the battle of breast cancer. The impact and reach, to all loved ones, is enormous. I recognize with each passing year, the fear and discomfort of hearing this type of news, within my inner circle, is something I will be forced to deal with but how do you prepare? All of us have exper...

Firstly, I have to say that I know Samantha Verant. Her parents and I go way back. I knew her when she was married before , I knew her when she was divorced, and I am getting to know her now, as a happy, fulfilled, romantic and completely beloved woman. Any time a friend writes a book I figure I’ll enjoy it because I obviously like that person well enough to call her or him friend. So it stands to reason I’ll like what he or she writes. Then along comes a book like Seven Letters From Paris , and it’s a revelation. An eye-opener. An utter joy. Although I adored Samantha since the day we met, I mostly viewed her through the lens of being friends with her parents. I knew her stories through them. Her sadness was their sadness. Her heartbreak, theirs. I’ve only come to really know the person of Samantha through her exquisite memoir, and as a result she has taken shape as the guardian angel of second chances, and a living testament to the idea that we deserve true, deep, soul-m...

I'm sure pretty much every writer would agree that STARTING writing a new book is the easy bit, it's actually getting that manuscript finished that's tough, particularly when the initial excitement of the new idea wanes a little. It certainly doesn't help that life has a nasty habit of getting in the way of writing. Here are some tips I've picked up, I hope aspiring authors will find them helpful. 1: Make as detailed a plan of your storyline as you possibly can before you actually start 'writing'. The plan can always be changed and updated, but it will give you a guide. 2: Set yourself a REALISTIC daily word target, and really, really try to stick to it. 500-2000 words are generally sensible. 3: Turn off the internet - Facebook and Twitter are very, very useful when it comes to marketing your book and making contacts BUT they do not help write your book! Unplug that internet and only plug it back in again when you've reached your word target! ...

There is a tradition among writers known as “passing it along.”  This likely grew from the earliest days of storytelling, sitting around a campfire and spinning tales.  And that’s precisely the way I ended up getting the very best advice I’ve been told about writing.  (Except I wasn’t sitting around a campfire…) It turns out to be helpful for a lot of things, too.  The advice came from a friend, the wonderful writer Jack B. Sowards who wrote Star Trek II:   The Wrath of Khan.  And as it happens, this advice was given to him by the celebrated writer of How the West was Won, James R. Webb. (See what I meant about writers passing it along?) One day when Sowards was starting out as a writer, he had a meeting with James Webb, who said to the young man that he was going to give him the absolute best advice about writing there was. Excited, knowing that he was about to get the wisdom of the ages, Sowards took out his pen and made sure he had plenty of paper...