Carmen DeSousa

Text-to-speech apps don't work for pantsers If you aren't one of the unlucky peeps who've heard me complain about my shoulder surgery, I'll save you the moaning and groaning, and just talk about how it's affecting my work. I thought for sure I could plan out my upcoming books. Just this once I hoped my characters would give me an entire synopsis for a story.  But no ... two to three chapters is about as far as I can get, and even that info is vague. :( So ... what's a writer to do? Well, if you're me ... you sit around thinking up a bunch of other stories you want to write, but don't have time to. In fact, one idea that came to me had me so excited to read that I went looking to see if it'd ever been done. Nope! Couldn't find it! So, I now have sixty-eight ideas in my 'My Writing' app. And I'm doing the one thing I'm good at: taking notes! I might not have the ability to be creative using text-to-speech, but DA...

Sometimes when I start to write a blog , I worry that people may think I’m crazy, and in some ways, I guess I am. After all, I do hear voices. Wait! Don’t leave, hear me out… If you are an author, you understand this hopefully, and if you are an avid reader on Twitter or Facebook, you’ve probably heard this too. If you are just a random passerby, please let me know how you found this blog. ☺ Anyway, I don’t hear audible voices, but yes, I honestly feel as if my characters take on a life of their own. I try to write three hours every morning, and then right before I go to bed, I reread everything I wrote that morning, highlighting any errors or editing needs. Yes, this is a great way to edit as you go, but also, those two or three chapters I read right before I go to bed play out in my dreams now. Just as a movie you just watched will play out in your head, now your last scene is left hanging for the characters to come alive. Does that sound crazy? Well, i...