Melissa West

I don't know about you, but my characters tend to "race" around everywhere. Sally raced to the car. John raced to her side. They raced into a hot embrace. You get the picture (though kidding on the last one). So today I'm being super selfish and listing synonyms for "race" as that is one of my overused verbs. What are some of yours? _______________________________________________________ WORD: RACE DEFINITION: To proceed quickly SYNONYMS: barrel, belt, blast, blaze, blow, bolt, breeze, careen, career, chase, course, dash, drive, fly, hare, hasten, hurl, hurtle, jet, jump, motor, nip, pelt, rocket, run, rush, rustle, scoot, scurry, scuttle, shoot, speed, step, tear, travel, trot, whirl, whisk, zip, zoom _______________________________________________________ Have a great weekend!! M.B.

So on Saturday I had this strange experience. I had absentmindedly forgotten to pick up egg dye (gasp!) and ended up going to two places to find it. Well my venture landed me at Rite Aid -- a drugstore of sorts for those of you outside the US. I'm standing there in line, tapping the box, while the woman in front of me argues over some buy-one-get-one offer on a pack of paper plates. By the time the manager agrees to give the lady the discount (just to get her out of the store I'm sure), 15 minutes had passed. FIFTEEN MINUTES. I would have gone elsewhere, but the egg dye in my hand was the last in the store and who knows if I would have found another box elsewhere. I stalk out of the store angry and frustrated that anyone would waste 15 minutes of their time on a $2 pack of paper plates. But this tramatizing event got me thinking. What little things do we do during the day or week that detracts from the top, say, five most important things in our life? I often have people ask m

So today fellow hilarious blogger, Tyson , gave me the Stylish Blogger award. I decided to define an uncommon synonym of "stylish" to celebrate. _______________________________ Word: MODISH Definition: fashionable, stylish Usage: She wore a modish strapless dress. _______________________________ Now to the rules for the Stylish award. I have to list 7 things about myself and then suggest a few awesome bloggers. Here goes... I am only 5'3, 110 lbs fully clothed and soaking wet, yet many of my co-workers refer to me as "intimidating." :) This makes me laugh every time. I have weird knowledge of all things health and skincare. I am a total t-shirt and jeans girl, but am crazy particular about said t-shirt and jeans. I own every color of JCrew v-neck T available and more pairs of skinny/straight jeans than any female should ever have. I married my husband for many reasons, but the longer we've been together I realize how similar he is to my dad (who I adore in

Yesterday, I finished up a popular novel that I enjoyed for the storytelling, but realized early on that the writing wasn't stellar. All the traditional rules were broken, continuously. POV switches. Tense switches. Pages upon pages of backstory. Pages upon pages of dialogue. That sort of thing. But I still enjoyed the book because aside from the writerly things *we* writers notice, the author was a great storyteller. I think there is a difference between good writing and good storytelling. I've read books where the writing was so beautiful that I had to re-read passages again and again. But by story end I had no idea what the story was about. Now, the true geniuses (like C.S. Lewis) are the ones who can do both. How about you? Do you notice this difference and if so which do you prefer if you can only have one in a book -- captivating storytelling or beautiful writing? M.B.

Yep, it's Thesaurus Talk Time. But before I list the overused word, I want to caution against replacing basic words with fancy-barely-can-pronouce words. When you replace the overused word, the sentence should flow equally as well or better. If not, you may want to rework the sentence. __________________________________________________ Overused word: RUSH Definition: to cause to move or proceed fast or faster Synonyms: accelerate, bundle, fast-track, hasten, quicken, speed up, whisk Related words: drive, goad, propel, push, race, spur, stir, urge __________________________________________________

Sorry for the blog delay. Sick child causes all extras to stop. But tonight, with a much healthier child finally in bed, I finished my fifth revision of TWISTED ROOT. Oddly enough, I thought I only revised it twice, but doc name reads TwistedRoot.5. Hmm. And that's when I realized I revised the first half five times and the second only twice. Does anyone else do this? I find my writing improves as I near the end. Plus, midway through TR, I came to a halt, lost on how to finish. I had to plot out the end fully in order to continue, which perhaps resulted in a cleaner draft? I'm not sure, but I am soooo glad to be done. For now. M.B.

Yesterday, I was a bit on the moody side and decided to find a synonym of moody for my dictionary word of the day. The reason? We often have moody characters, right? Now of course we should "show" instead of "tell" their moodiness, but assuming you've already done that and need a flashy adjective, then here you go. __________________________________ CHOLERIC TYPE: Adjective DEFINITION: easily moved to often unreasonable or excessive anger USAGE: Watch out for the choleric librarian. Sue forgot her books, and the crazy lib bit her head off. __________________________________ Happy weekend, all! M.B.

Today I wanted to talk about a wall standing in front of unpublished writers. Her name is Subjectivity. And I'd say she looks something like this: I sent a long (sorry again!) email to one of my CPs about this very thing last night. See, somehow my WIP became a finalist in a popular RWA contest. I nearly cried and definitely screamed. Well then I submitted the same thing for a critique and it was ripped apart. Now, don't get me wrong, I love a hard crit. But now I'm torn--do I fix all the issues? Fix only the issues that feel right to me? Ignore it? Tough thing to work through for sure. But this is what I realized: subjectivity isn't just an agent/editor issue. No, subjectivity is something to consider with CPs and betas as well. This is why it's important to support your work. Love what you do and trust in your skills. I have a hard time with this, I'll admit, but I think it's vital for success in this business. What do you think? Ever receive a crit that f

I’ve grown a little obsessed with Goodreads lately. Some reviewers seem to love everything, while others hate everything. The logic behind many of the reviews can be fairly funny to read. One such topic for YA has been “insta-love.” The reviews define the term as two characters meet and 20 pages later they’re madly in love, willing to give up their lives for one another. While I think 20 pages is likely quick for the word “love,” I do not think it is too quick for obsession. Why? Because that is teen love. I have a 14-year-old niece who has a different boyfriend all the time it seems. One such boyfriend “cheated” on her—meaning he went to a movie with another girl—and she said “it was really hard because we were together so long.” So I asked her how long and she responded: “three weeks.” Yep, it took three whole weeks for my young niece to fall for some boy. I think it is very important to remember our true audience when writing for YA. We are not writing for the 30-year-old women who