Writing Wednesday

Hi everyone, Wednesday is here again. Summer is flying by. 

First off, I have found a few places you might like to visit. And, you do not have to leave your nice air conditioned house to go to them!

A few Wednesday's ago I interviewed author, Pam Hanson. Everyone can visit here and like her author page on Facebook. Her latest book, Faith, Fireworks and Fir, is available at Amazon as an e-book.

There is a neat writing contest on Cactus Country blog site. Go check it out and see if you would be interested in entering it.

And, I just found out about Writeoncon. They are having a free online writer's conference. You might want to go check out their site.

Here is another good place to go. As a guest, you can copy and paste up to three passages of your manuscript in every 24 hour period for a free critique. I've been visiting there and it is helping me weed out some of my mistakes in my manuscript.

I love using onomatopoeia [on-uh-mat-uh-pee-uh] words in my writing. I'm a children's writer, so I might get to have fun with these words a little more often than writers of other genres. But everyone uses these words in their writing. They are a class of words that have developed from the mimicking of sounds in our environment.

We have animal or machine noises, body function noises, fast motion noises,  musical noises, cooking or eating noises and fighting noises.You might call them the special effects of our stories. Use them sparingly and they can perk up your writing.


Edgar Allen Poe used onomatopoeia in his poem, The Raven.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
" 'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door;
Only this, and nothing more."

Here is another example:

"He saw nothing and heard nothing but he could feel his heart pounding and then he heard the clack on stone and the leaping, dropping clicks of a small rock falling. " (Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls)

Here is a great onomatopoeia site, it even has a Hangman Game you can play.

Enjoy yourself. Have fun with writing.