PenTwist

Quotable by Anne Lamott

You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should’ve behaved better. Anne Lamott

Instead of placing a redundant preview on PenTwist, please click on one of the links below for a preview on Amazon’s website:

Caged Minds – on Kindle

Or a preview on Barnes and Nobel’s website if you prefer NOOK as your Ebook Reader:

Caged Minds – on NOOK

Thanks for the positive feedback!

**Recent in-depth review of Caged Minds**

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When is the right time to consider your story’s timeline?

Right now!

One of the easiest mistakes to make as a new writer is to jump right into your story without a fragmented skeleton of an outline. But an even worse mistake is to get 40 – 50K words into your manuscript and see timing elements that don’t mesh.
Rewrites can be pure evil if one of your elements or your scenes causes a few of your “days” to seem an impossible 46 ½ hours long, or you based the beginning pace on an unsupportable time frame that comes back to bite you – nearly at the end of your manuscript.
Now is the time where an ounce of prevention can save you a week (or more) of heartache, trying to correct a simple mistake at Chapter Three, only to find that it completely destroys the integration of your story throughout 400+ pages of intense plot!
Keep a running tally on each chapter, each imaginary day, and skip right over that writer’s pit!

Check out Writers Rant or the Archives for more helpful hints.

Happy Writing,

David Pyle

….or Evidence of things Hoped for…

There is one thing that is almost inevitable in this life, whether long and prosperous or short and jagged – people collect junk.
For the sake of argument, I’m heaping those who keep sentimental trinkets from their past into the same bucket as those who are borderline obsessive about their collections. That raw gem you gleaned from a split in a sidewalk during your honeymoon would be no less precious to an obsessive personality over their stack of yellowed newspapers stored from nine years past.
As a child, I remember my own aged family members, who seemed almost destitute to throw away small items they deemed reusable on a rainy day. My own grandfather kept everything from used screws to straightened nails, sorted in old coffee cans, and my grandmother had a special drawer in her dresser with bits and pieces of her sewing craft as well as an old scratched magnifying glass. Their obsession was derived from a depression era philosophy ingrained into their very pores.
Waste not, want not.

It was Thomas A. Edison that said –

“To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.”

As a writer, creativity can creep up on you at the oddest of moments, linking junked memories from your past, and assembling them into something bright, shiny, and new. Good memories, bad memories, and even the mundane are items that are not easily discarded.
We all collect junk in our lives like a vacuum collecting dust bunnies. Never believe that your life has been too short, too uneventful, inexperienced, or drab to become or create something more than you already are.
If you feel life has handed you a box of junk or inanimate parts, take the time to find their collective use and see a competed work of art. Whether you write, paint, or create metal artwork, take a moment to inventory and use those discarded items from your life.

David Pyle

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Recognize your temperament!

How rarely do we have a day when most everything goes according to plan?
Not too often?
What about those days when you’re happy when ONE thing goes right?
🙂

As a writer, moods affect not only the quality, but the moods of our created characters. When you’re having a crap day, your characters tend to take on your personality. Conversely, when you’re having a perfect day, it becomes almost impossible to fall into your antagonist’s mindset!

One of the reasons I work on multiple manuscripts at the same time, is to use those moods transitions. The hardest part is admitting to yourself that you’re in a funk, or that you’d rather be out in the sun with a cold glass of tea.
Learn to harness your inner strengths, recognize your current chemistries, and use them.

Try this little trick on for size for one week and watch your bad guys reek with antagonism, and your protagonists shine with witty sarcasm!

Write on!

David Pyle

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Here’s to New Beginnings!

This latest addition to my writing bookshelf (number 6) was the most challenging of my last two efforts.  Maintaining five main characters, while maintaining each character’s unique individuality can be quite a challenge.  This can become even more challenging, especially when the lines between multiple protagonists and antagonists shift and blur, revealing their true natures.  Realistic characterization vs. plastic characterization can make or destroy a story, especially if each one loses their individuality.

In this psychological thriller, you’ll find the hard twists and turns you’ve come to expect in all of my novels, coupled with bits of historical fiction.  If you’ve watched Big Brother and like Criminal Minds, you’ll notice a convergence of both their dynamics that mimic the old Mission Impossible episodes.

Be sure to pick up a Hard Copy or read it on NOOK.  It should be available for Kindle in the near future.  Please drop me a note or comment to let me know what you think of this latest venture!  I look forward to hearing from everyone.

In lieu of the recent outbreaks of ignorance and blatant disrespect of human rights, Pentwist will be posting a few reminders that no one is perfect and forgiveness is divine.
Some posts will not need comments…

Drivel I wrote for my kids to ponder…

Today
by David Pyle

Today was the first and last time I would ever awaken on December 12, 2014. This day appeared, I was alive, and it would never come again. In this finite time-line, all of creation is pushed ever forward by an unseen wall called TIME. At six a.m., the clock alarm went off and mere moments later a minute had passed, never to be reclaimed, never to be changed, and barely remembered.
This simple revelation of truth can be received two ways – a cavern of depression, or a bonus incentive to live every second while you can.
When the supreme universal hourglass was flipped at the moment of all creation, there were only a finite number of grains of sand inside the upper chamber. Time cannot last forever, yet forever will last beyond time. Thankfully, our hope and consolation is eternal life.
But what of now? What of today? Life is more than waking, eating, working, scrambling, sleeping, and beginning the sequence again every day of our lives.
The element of life is above mere existence.

…

One Day Giveaway on Amazon Kindle

For those readers uncertain about trying a new author, you can try three of my books:

Between Life and Death

Minutes

Pitre

*If you like what you read, please say so.  If not, be kind and delete it.  Silence is golden!

Thanks to my readers!

David