Category: Ramblings of a Writer
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Following the Muse
By Patricia Zick @PCZick Sometimes the muse leads us where we need to go. In early 2002, I was working on a novel set on the Suwanee River. I was also a reporter for a 5,000 circulation weekly newspaper in north Florida. I covered one of the more contentious city commissions as WalMart began…
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Sticks and Stones and Words
By Patricia Zick @PCZick The biggest lie from childhood: Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never harm me. Hit me with a stick or throw a stone at me anytime rather than tell me that my face is ugly or my clothes are old or my mother wears army boots. Tell…
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Incubating a Novel
“Write. Rewrite. When not writing or rewriting, read. I know of no shortcuts.” Larry L. King By Patricia Zick @PCZick My new novel is incubating. I finished the complete first draft in February. I gave it over to two beta readers who sent back their comments and suggestions in May. In the meantime, I read.…
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“Once a Upon a Time” is thankfully in the past
By Patricia Zick @PCZick Note: I wrote this column about publishing my first novel in 2000. Times have changed and after re-reading this piece and remembering, I’m happy they have. Viva la revolution! All I ever wanted to do was write, but I kept that knowledge to myself as I went to college and then…
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Patti Smith Just Rocks
By Patricia Zick @PCZick Just Kids chronicles the rising star of poet Patti Smith and photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, two free spirits let loose in New York City in the late ‘60s. Patti is the kind of artist I always longed to be: cool and free. My fear of rejection kept me from stepping off my…
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The Organic Writer
By Patricia Zick @PCZick I recently visited Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater in western Pennsylvania. Wright described his design as organic architecture – a melding of nature and man. As I toured the home, I wanted to sit down and write. I yearned to send all the tour groups on their way so I could enjoy…
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Win Live from the Road
Live from the Road is featured on Laurie’s Thoughts and Reviews today. The blog contains an excerpt from the book, an interview with me and a chance to win either a print or kindle version of the book. Drop by and visit and enter to win! The contest ends September 22, 2012. I’m shamelessly…
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All memory is fiction
By Patricia Zick @PCZick When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people, not characters. A character is a caricature. -Ernest Hemingway I just finished reading The Paris Wife by Paula McLain, a fictional account of Hemingway’s first marriage to Hadley Richardson. They married before he’d published any of his novels, and she…
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To Which or To That. . .
By Patricia Zick @PCZick that is the question, which I pose today. It’s always good to review the rules of grammar. Here’s an excellent article from Writer’s Digest on the vagaries of the not so interchangeable which and that. I probably need to read it a couple of times, even though I thought I knew…
P.C. ZICK 