The End Holds Hands with The Beginning

Ann H GabhartAnn's Posts, One Writer's Journal 6 Comments

“The beginning and the end reach out their hands to each other.” (Chinese Proverb) One more time I have written those two oftentimes elusive words. The end. I’m not sure I’ve written the right words before those two necessary words, but as the King suggests in the quote below, I stopped. “Begin at the beginning,”, the King said, very gravely, …

Typing with Nine Fingers

Ann H GabhartAnn's Posts, One Writer's Journal 25 Comments

Some days it doesn’t pay to take a walk. First off this morning, March definitely came in like a lion around here with storms and winds. Lightning. Thunder. Even hail. And pouring rain. Over 2 inches last night and today. And nearby communities had it worse than us. But then the storm passed on to the southeast and so, as …

Another Hidden Springs Mystery on the Way

Ann H GabhartAnn's Posts, One Writer's Journal 14 Comments

For an author, there’s nothing quite like holding in your hand that book that you’ve spent many long hours writing. You started with a shimmer of an idea. You added characters. You built a setting. You entangled your characters into all sorts of situations. Maybe some fun ones. Or romantic ones, or even dangerous ones for a mystery like Murder …

There Has to Be a First Sentence

Ann H GabhartAnn's Posts, One Writer's Journal

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. That’s a famous first sentence from George Orwell’s novel 1984 published in 1949. The sentence lets you know at once that this story is no ordinary story. Every story has to have a first sentence. That first sentence needs to not only pull the reader into a …