Holy guacamole, I almost forgot the IWSG blog hop! In my defense, it’s been quite the discombobulating month as we left our home in Tacoma, Washington and trekked across five states on our way to our new home in Las Vegas, Nevada. Honestly, these past few weeks I don’t know my left from my right, my hat from my glove…

But here we are, ready for another round of blog visits among the Insecure Writers Support Group, a wonderful resource for writers of all stripes. You’ll find resources, anthologies, knowledge aplenty, and a hand to hold when the writing grind is wearing you down. Check it out here: https://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/p/iwsg-sign-up.html

Today’s question: What is your favorite writing craft book? Think of a book that every time you read it you learn something or you are inspired to write or try the new technique. And why?

A few of my favorite craft books for writers

Well, if forced to pick just one, it’d probably be The Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi. You probably own one of their many volumes. When we unpack our moving cartons sometime next month, I look forward to diving into their latest (?) volume, The Emotional Wound Thesaurus. 

I aim for deep 3rd-person POV, opting for physical beats, internal dialogue, and visceral reactions rather than endless “he said,” “she asked,” “he pondered,” etc. My first drafts are full of shrugs, eye rolls, stepping forward, stepping back, you do the hokey pokey and you turn yourself around… Ackerman and Puglisi’s treasure chest of actions and reactions, sorted by every emotion you can think of, is a huge help in showing, rather than telling, the inner landscape of my characters.

What about you? I’d love to hear about your favorite books for writers. There’s always something new to learn.

Image by Merio from Pixabay

Shortly after my last #IWSG post, we left our Tacoma home behind. Y’all, it sold two days after being put in the market. Color me flabbergasted. The real estate market is astonishing these days. It took us a solid week of looking at houses in Las Vegas before we found our favorite, thanks to our real estate superhero John di Carlo. (Highly recommend) The sellers accepted our offer, and we’re deep in the weeds of negotiations, inspections, etc. Fingers crossed! I’ll post pictures once the house is officially ours.

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