This Is How We Create: Launch Day/Book Review Over a Cuppa

What happens when 23 authors explore where creativity comes from and how ideas become something more? Over a Cuppa, I’m celebrating the launch of This Is How We Create, sharing my review, and telling how forty-two cookies helped me rediscover my own creativity.

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Point of View: How to Keep Readers Inside Your Story

Point of view is more than choosing first or third person. Author Diana Peach explains POV, voice, head-hopping, and the mistakes that can pull readers out of a story—with clear examples to help writers keep readers immersed.

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How to Blog Your Way to a Nonfiction Book Contract

What Would You Do with an Email about a Possible Nonfiction Book Contract? Who knows why I didn't delete Ginny's email on Wednesday, May 28, 2014. She asked me if I wanted a nonfiction book contract to write a book about Woodlake, CA. It sounded like a spam email. Did I want to write a nonfiction book? Everyone Has Advice for New Bloggers - Even Publishers…

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How to Start Blogging Like an Expert

Start Blogging With a Page or a Post? Updated September 2026 Congratulations, you've decided to start blogging. You have read blogs for years. Incognito, right? Now it's your turn to blog. You have your account. Now what? Unlike any other form of communication, blogs connect writers and readers. Blogging is reciprocal. You have to take the first step. So fill up that blank screen.

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How Does an Irish Author with Five Children Publish a Book?

Irish Author Fiona Hogan Celebrates Her First Book We will learn today what Irish author Fiona went through to write and publish her book, The Lights Went Out and Other Stories. Marsha Ingrao: Today I'd like to introduce Fiona Hogan, an Irish author, one of my new blogging friends from the Intentional Blogging Course I'm taking. Fiona suffers from social media craziness and is a member of more than twenty author, blogging, tweeting, and general writing groups, not to mention the writers’ pages I have liked.  

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The Answer Is…

We didn't have to wait until Friday.  Tonia Hurst, a California gal, picked up on this little tendril right away.  Congratulations Tonia!!!  Gold Star Tonia Hurst!! a dried up grape tendril Now, since you have been such good guessers, I have a couple of blogging questions to ask you.  I am writing an article about blogging for What's Happening in the Foothills…

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Bloggers Can’t Avoid Selling Something

Editorial Note 2026: This post has been lightly updated but deliberately retains references to Twitter, Google+, and an early blogging project for Woodlake Botanical Gardens. I'm preserving it as a snapshot of how bloggers used blogs and social media to promote causes, build communities, and wrestle with the idea of “selling” online. Innocent Accusations Open Your Eyes to the Truth!

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Celebrating Reviews and Insurance Over a Cuppa

A glowing five-star review gives me something wonderful to celebrate Over a Cuppa, while navigating California’s maze of health insurance and identification gives me plenty to gripe about. Somewhere between gratitude and frustration, a little poetry—and a dose of my own advice—helps me adjust my attitude and move on.

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Sometimes You Just Need a Simple Podcast

Updated September 2026: Technology has changed considerably since I wrote this post in 2020, so I wouldn't recommend following these instructions today. But the experience taught me something that hasn't changed: sometimes the best way to learn new technology is simply to start. After I did a short interview with a social studies expert for a professional organization for teachers, I decided I wanted to create a simple podcast.

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Over a Cuppa: Working from Home

A quiet few weeks? Maybe—but creativity is blooming. Join me Over a Cuppa for book-launch excitement, a little poetry, Queen Moji’s bath-day escape attempt, and late-summer sunflowers.

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Story Chat Digest: “If You Happen to See the Most Beautiful Woman in the World” by Hugh W. Roberts

He couldn’t take his eyes off her. The most beautiful woman in the world moved through the crowds as if she didn’t belong to them—and perhaps she didn’t. What begins as admiration slowly shifts into something more unsettling in this intriguing Story Chat selection by Hugh W. Roberts, where perception, desire, and reality quietly blur.

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Have a Restful Labor Day

Wishing you a restful Labor Day remembering all those who work hard all year long.

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Low Statistics? Behind the Scenes Tweaks For Top Results

Editorial Note 2026 In 2016, I opened a WordPress.org website to focus more on writing and less on personal issues. I found that keeping up with the technology took more time and expertise than I had, so I eventually closed the site. I migrated the posts to my original site. I'm updating them so they retain their value. Two years into blogging, my stats nose-dived.

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Internet Purgatory

Technology frustrates me. I knew when it took 5 hours to write and upload a post with 11 pictures that I was in trouble. So we called Wild Blue, our internet company. After a fifteen-minute wait, and an obnoxious technical assistant putting us through a 30-45 minute pretense of tests to get our computer to respond more quickly when you turn it on, the irritating one from Michigan said, “Your records show that you have used up all of your download allowance for the month.”

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Craft Workshop Roundup #3

Writing craft isn't a collection of rules—it's a set of skills we strengthen through practice, feedback, and conversation. This month, Story Chat readers challenged the advice, defended writers' voices, and reminded me why these workshops exist.

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Jake, Lucid Dreamer by David Naiman

Want a Book That Boys Want to Read? Attention Parents and Teachers! Boys struggle to read fiction, believe it or not. Give them a book about animals, cars, boats, anything non-fiction and they devour it. But not fiction. So now schools focus on non-fiction. But fiction develops values and emotions. Boys need that as much as girls. So give you boys this book.

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Over a Cuppa at the Beach

Flowers, beaches, poetry, and a walk through Laguna Beach lead to an unexpected trip into the past—and a remembrance of a remarkable woman whose words changed my life.

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Three Reasons for Hosting Cee’s Oddball Challenge

Why I love Cee's Oddball Challenge Since there's no theme but odd, it's easy to write and schedule this challenge. Cee made all her challenges easy because she announced the themes weeks in advance. This one is easy to find pictures for. Yesterday I went through about a third of my pictures and pulled out 40 that I thought would work. 

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Classic Book Review: Presumed Innocent

A writer’s look at Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent—from planting early clues and believable lies to powerful descriptions and seemingly minor details that become important hundreds of pages later.

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Book Review: Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass

Eleven years after giving Donald Maass’s Writing the Breakout Novel five stars, I revisited his advice on plot, character, stakes, and more—and discovered a lesson I missed the first time: learning the tools of writing craft doesn’t mean using them all at once.

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How to Use Email Lists and Stay Out Of Jail

Use Email Lists to Promote Your Projects? That's random, use email lists. Why? Kirsten Oliphant offered a free course in why and how to use them. I signed up. Here are a few facts about people who use email lists. In 2014 Venture Beat predicted that seventy-five percent of enterprises will be investing in personalized messaging in 2015. Campaign Monitor…

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How to Overcome Messed-Up Instructions about a Landing Page When You Don’t Know Nothing

Hey, Blogger! Do you get frustrated when you're learning new blogging skills? You think it's because you don't know anything, but think again. Maybe the instructions are as clear as mud. Learn what you can do instead of getting frustrated. Editor's Note This post was revised in 2026. AI has changed how we receive and learn new information. Don't get me wrong.

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Book Review: How to Write Dazzling Dialogue: The Fastest Way to Improve Any Manuscript by James Scott Bell

What makes dialogue dazzle instead of drag? James Scott Bell packs 134 pages with practical advice on character agendas, conflict, subtext, silence, and more. Some of his advice made me say, “Ouch!”

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SCD: August Poetry Day

Creative fire meets summer heat on Poetry Day. Robbie Cheadle explores the irresistible energy of artistic creation, while Selma Martin takes on an unwelcome July in a Dickinson-inspired poem filled with heat, humor, and longing for fall.

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National Monument in Arizona You Don’t Want to Miss

Montezuma Well National Monument Do you love beautiful, easy trails, history, and stunning views? Then Montezuma Well near Sedona, AZ is a must-see national monument. Montezuma Well National Monument Open Holidays We did not expect National Monuments to open on a holiday. We were wrong. National Parks here are only closed on Christmas Day. There are three National Monuments to visit all within about 30 minutes of Sedona.

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Story Chat Craft Workshop #2: Write Three Different Endings ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

How should your story end? This month's Story Chat Craft Workshop explores techniques for writing satisfying endings before inviting you to create your own. Three unfinished stories challenge you to write both expected and unexpected conclusions that leave readers wanting more.

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Sawdust and Masters Over a Cuppa

Trepidatious steps come in all shapes and sizes—from a new hip and a flower-photo hunt to our first vacation of the year. Join me Over a Cuppa for poetry, Laguna Beach adventures, small delights, and a peek at Friday’s Story Chat Workshop.

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Story Chat Digest: “Snared” by Cathy Cade

A magpie, a missing five-pound note, and a shelter deep in the forest lead two brothers somewhere they never expected to go. But the animals have been watching—and they haven't forgotten.

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Story Chat Digest Workshop #3: Every Word Must Earn Its Place.

Every sentence should earn its place. Discover how purposeful dialogue, meaningful description, and carefully chosen details work together to reveal character, build setting, and move your story forward—one sentence at a time.

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Over a cuppa: Sunny Days and Small Delights

Over a Cuppa is a weekly post on Always Write that offers a welcoming space for reflection, creativity, and conversation. Each week, I share poems, photographs, flash fiction, book reviews, philosophy, personal stories, and reflections on my Word of the Year—inviting readers to pause, reflect, and share their own stories. I created the Featured Image with AI assistance from ChatGPT and Canva, using one of my photographs.

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