Marilyn's Musings

Every writer knows that a story has to start with a problem for their character to solve. The main character in a story has to have some sort of conflict thrown at them, or where's the story? There's plenty of conflict in everyday life, but writers often have to "up the ante" in their books to give their readers an escape. Spilling your Caramel Latte in your lap or getting stuck in traffic for hours amounts to a very bad day, but not usually a bookworthy problem. (Unless, say, you're right in front of a very sinister person in said traffic...or better yet trapped with them in the car and you've just found out they're the "bad guy"...Maybe you're on your way to warn someone about something dire and now you can't get there...the clock's ticking...) But I'm getting off point here. Frequently writers turn to death, disease, or failed relationships in their writing. (As an avid reader I'd call it the "top...

Julie Egert's book, " The Left Side Of The Stairs " is now available on Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and BooksAMillion.com. It was published by Aberdeen Bay. Anyone interested can read the first two chapters of "The Left Side Of The Stairs" on her author's site, julieegertwrites.com Here is what Julie is sharing with us today: Hi everybody, and thanks, Marilyn, for having me. I started out my writing career as a journalist, looking to parlay my love of writing into a way to support myself. I quickly found out that it was more fun to choose my own topics, and eventually decided that I loved writing my own (fictional) stories even more. (Yes, I know that there are those who would argue that journalists write plenty of fiction). But the ability to research, which I learned in J-school, can serve a novelist well, too. I think the trick, like so many things in life, is to find that balance, and to know how much is too much. When I started writing "The L...