"4 Tips for Creating Characters That Feel Resonant and Real" & Good News x 2!

Photo free-stock courtesy of Fidel Fernando at Unsplash.com.

I’m delighted that my article, “4 Tips for Creating Characters That Feel Real,” is featured today over at the fabulous Women Writers, Women’s Books.

Also thrilled that my photograph was recently featured in The Charleston Anvil! Check out this very cool magazine and consider submitting your own art and writing: about the magazine.

An excerpt of my craft article:

A character who (eventually) acknowledges their own stumbling blocks is a likeable character

You know how much readers love know-it-alls who either have no faults or who never get caught up in false assumptions, poor decisions, or self-sabotage, the characters who point out others’ faults and always know what to do and say? Yeah, about as much as we enjoy people in real life who project an impossible image of perfection: zero percent. One of the easiest and best ways we can make our readers connect to our characters is to give them a foible.

The flaw should be big enough that it is negatively affecting the character’s life and, preferably, also starting to affect their loved ones’ lives, too. In fact, if the character can have fears and other emotions and, even better, direct actions to cover up or stop the consequences of the flaws, that’s a character readers will be eager to read from beginning to end. Much as we grow to love and protect our characters as we write them, we must make sure that characters don’t avoid growth by running away from conflict. Characters who go through the fire of trouble and make it out the other side with new experiences are characters readers identify with and want to know more about through a story. 

Read the rest at: clickety!

My Return to Journaling & A Super Journaling Resource ✍️

Recently, I found a journal I kept in 2017. It’s a small hand-held journal, a little longer than a wallet, with a gold-leaf cover. While the cover is flaking a bit from wear, the insights inside the journal are vibrant and never fail to bring a smile to my face. The year 2017 is on the center of the front cover in a space-agey font.

Each day, in blocks about a third of each page and five or six lines each, I’d noted events I had long forgotten and, but for the journal, would never have remembered—from little things my nieces said as very small children to favorite quotes that boosted my day to classes I taught, friends’ milestones, and more.

For many years after 2017, I didn’t journal regularly, save for 2024, where I kept a drawing/doodling journal every day that helped me flex and grow my sketching muscles. I missed reflecting in a few words to a paragraph each day, and I wanted to get that feeling again of writing down for savoring later—whether that’s six weeks, six months, or sixteen years from now.

So, in May, I purchased a 3-year journal with spots to write each day. You’d think I would have dived in upon getting the robin’s egg blue, inviting new journal, but… nope. In the midst of preparing my latest fun book for publication and marketing, life got lifey and my new journal, alas, sat on a TBR pile until mid-August, when I cracked the spine and got started at last.

All’s well that ends well: it’s been a little over two months now, and I’m starting to notice a delightful thing happening that I’d forgotten from my 2017 daily writing: earlier and earlier in the day I notice little things I want to write for each day. Sometimes it’s an observation; today it was a quote and a description of what I doodled this afternoon. I’m actively and rather easily finding so many great options for tiny morsels to uplift and entertain me in the near future. One of my favorite parts of writing a journal is that it trains the mind, eyes, and heart to notice more openly. It also helps me to live more in the moment in the midst of often-rushed days.

Journaling is a slowing and an appreciating way of being. It’s also fun and individualistic. It can be personal or shared with others. You can make the entries as short or long as you’d like. You can say as much or as little as you feel comfortable sharing. You can use all words, doodles and words/captions, a mixture of both, or even collage.

The sky’s the limit. What matters is setting aside a little time, a little calm and focus, and an

optimism that each day carries something well worth sharing with yourself—both now and in the future.

To find even more encouragement and joy in the journaling process, I heartily recommend Mari

McCarthy’s Journaling Power: How to Create the Happy, Healthy Life YOU Want to Live. It’s currently celebrating its 10-year publication anniversary and is packed with advice, tips, and wisdom to make your journaling journey an enriching and meaningful process for many years to come.

Learn more about Mari and her wonderful books at: clickety-click.

3 Days to Go! 🥳

This is the face of a woman who has just 3 days until her latest book-birthday! 🥳Can’t wait to share it with all of you! This is also the face of a woman who found the chromatic filter. 🤣

Here’s an introduction to one of my book’s protagonists, Helen. Stay tuned to learn more about my main characters.

Get your copy of my book at Vine Leaves Press. Signed copies also available at my Etsy store, WritePathProductions.

My Fifty-Word Story Published Today 🎊

Super excited that my fifty-word story was published today at 50 Give or Take. It will also appear in the yearly 50 Give or Take anthology. Read my story below, subscribe to get a daily delivery of a story to your inbox, and consider submitting your own stories. Learn more at: clickety-click.

“Stone Fruit”

Fragrant, like edible roses. I wish I’d drawn them first. I wish I’d gotten more than four.

I ate around the stones. I ate them one after another, over the sink, making happy sounds.

Truth be told, I’m standing there still, marked with sticky sweet juice as the world burns.

Melanie Faith loves film cameras and naps. Her latest book of poetry is The Price of Breathing .

"4 Ways Doodling Enriches the Writing Process"

Great news! My article with tips for doodling and writing was published today at Women on Writing! Read on for some tips and info about my online drawing class that begins Monday, August 3rd.

“4 Ways Doodling Enriches the Writing Process”

By: Melanie Faith

Like most people, when I was in elementary school, I loved art class and drawing. I always went at whatever project our art teacher, Mrs. K, assigned with gusto, if not precision. By 7th grade, art became a club by invitation only (I didn’t get the invitation) and other activities like writing and surviving as a teenager took over.

Although I didn’t talk about it much, throughout the years I always liked filling margins with shapes and signing greeting cards to friends and family with a little mini-me sketch. In the past five years, especially, I’ve started to draw more frequently as its own activity and filled pages with new artistic adventures, from oil pastels and alcohol markers to enjoying fine-liner pens, gouache, and beautiful, gifted colored pencils.   

How does doodling enhance our experience as writers?

Showing up for Ourselves: There is something refreshing about a low-outcome or no-expectation activity. Like walking, running, hiking, cycling, gardening, and other physical activities where the point is most often showing up, putting in practice, and enjoying the time that is separate from the to-do list, drawing also encourages us to grab a time and show up for it—and for ourselves in a way that is often shoved aside in daily life’s deadlines and expectations. Both drawing and writing tap into a relaxed state we seldom feel in our rushed everyday lives where responsibilities and obligations stack up. Showing up for our art and seeing what comes of it can be the best gift we give ourselves.

Experiencing the Moment without Rush or Worry: When we grab a pen or pencil or brush and begin to noodle around, as I like to call it, just as when we sit before a notebook or a computer screen and begin to draft, we are opening ourselves up to a side of ourselves that responds to discovery. Whether or not the draft or sketch turns out as we like, we are practicing showing up and seeing what we can make. When we are drawing, we get to experience again what kids feel as they make things: kids don’t care yet what the end piece becomes; they just enjoy the physical and emotional experience of using the art supplies and covering the table with them and filling a page.

Perseverance or Freedom to Begin Again: I opened up my camera roll recently and chose some recent photos to doodle. I expected very little out of the sketches—mostly, it was for the joy and the practice, and to have a prompt that could help me to leap into making marks on paper quickly, without sitting to think about it for too long. Did the doodles match my photos precisely? Not at all, but precision is not my goal. In the drawing, some fingers were slightly bigger than the others in the peace sign my elder niece flashed to me in the yarn store and my younger niece’s arms under the pizza boxes were too short, and I didn’t quite pencil in the funky sunglass lenses completely on the self-portrait doodle. But does any of it matter? Nope. The hour and a half I sat outside with my little square sketchbook surrounded by art supplies, my hand and mind moving across the page, was the complete goal, and honestly, it was such fun that it felt like about ten minutes. I was surprised to look at my watch and discover it had been well over an hour.

We can put a lot of pressure on ourselves for the first sketches or the first drafts to be beautiful or remarkable, and yet, it’s a great reminder in both arts to invest without expectation of outcome. Also, we  learn when we’d like to continue and when starting over is best. Some drawings surprise me that even if they don’t look objectively great, if I keep finessing them, they can become something remarkable anyway. Or it’s just time to scrap and try again, no penalty. If what I draw starts off wonky and keeps going astray, I can just give a chuckle and turn to the next page. Either way, the experience in knowing when and how to continue or to laugh it off and begin afresh serves well in both drawing and writing (and dare I say? Also in life).

Fulfillment. This one needs little explanation. When I’ve been meaning to write or to draw or photograph for a while but haven’t gotten around to it, I start to feel…deflated, agitated, and distracted.  Once I’ve given myself the gift of a few minutes or an hour making something, I feel more content. I’m just happier when making new things; maybe you are, too.

Try this exercise:  Give yourself 20 minutes today that you hadn’t expected and shower yourself with attention, by which I mean: grab a piece of blank paper or a notebook and make some marks, weather that’s a squiggly doodle you shade in, a few sentences about your day so far or your day yesterday, a stanza of a poem, or something else. Need inspo? Give your camera roll a spin and stop on an image that speaks to you. After your 20 minutes do a self-inventory: How do you feel? Are your shoulders more relaxed and less tight? How does your spine feel, and your breathing? Do you feel as if it’s been 20 minutes or a lot less? Repeat this exercise again later in the week and as often as you’d like. 😊

Care to learn more? I’ve got a class for you: Doodling Class clickety-click.

My Poem Featured 😊👍

Such a joy to be part of my friend Lee Ann Berardi Smith’s wonderful videos that celebrate National Poetry Month! Lee Ann has shared other poems of mine going back to the early days of the pandemic, and it’s such a pleasure to hear her read from my work.

Check out this video, where she reads my poem, “Matteo Runs Ahead,” as well as her other fantastic videos celebrating the art of poetry and many talented poets this month.

Clickety-Click

Free-stock Photo courtesy of Daiji Umemoto on Unsplash

Far Villages Poetry-Craft Anthology--April Sale! 🥳

A few years ago, I had the great pleasure of being included in a wonderful poetry craft-essay volume, called Far Villages: Welcome Essays for New & Beginner Poets. The volume was edited by talented Abayomi Animashaun through the marvelous Black Lawrence Press.

If you’re a poet, an educator, an interested reader who wants to learn more about the poetic craft, and/or are looking for a gift that’s sure to bring much inspiration to the poets in your life, I highly recommend this anthology. It’s the kind of book you’ll want to keep on a close shelf to page through for motivation and ideas.

Get your copy now—it’s on sale through this month while supplies last. Clickety-click! Write on!

Great April News: Publication of "It's the Kind of Thing" 🎊

Cotton-candy-colored blossoms and publication: sweet treats of April

So pleased to share that my nature poem. “It’s the Kind of Thing,” has been published in the current, April issue of The Bluebird Word.

Here are the opening lines, and clickety click to read the rest. Also, check out the work of the marvelous, talented fellow writers in the issue, including dear friend Antonia Albany’s wonderful Spent Water Balloons.

To this continued writing life! ✍️

“It’s the Kind of Thing”

if I wrote it you might
not believe me, but I’ll
write it anyway.

For a second, I mistook
riffs of an electric guitar
on the radio
of a passing car

for a stray cat or kitten
and looked up
from my book
for a tail and a lean cat needing care.

Read the rest and the entire issue at: The Bluebird Word.

Poetry Publication This Month and More Forthcoming! 🥳

Splendid news! This month, I have poetry at both Flowers of the Field and New Contexts 8: An Anthology Check out these brief excerpts of a poem from each literary magazine and then hop on over to the literary-magazine websites to read the rest and the excellent pieces by talented writers in each issue.

Excerpt from Flowers of the Field:

“All the Women Who Write Letters in Oil Paintings”

by Vermeer and other Dutch masters

call out to me today. I know what the internet

says about symbolizing interiority and love, but

what I see most when I see their pensive faces, the lull

of the lemon light splashing in from a window their desks

face, their fountain pens poised above

pristine paper with wax and seals surrounding, at ready,

probably not what the painters wanted me to notice:

uninterrupted time…

Excerpt from New Contexts 8: An Anthology:

“For my nieces, 13 and almost 11, as they embark on learning the potter’s wheel”

I always wanted to sit where you will soon sit.

The closest I came at your age was

making pinch pots—tidy, slightly lop-

sided, shallow dishes we in regular art period

glazed with our brushes, dunking into plastic jars of glaze,

after an afternoon at a nicked wooden group table.

I recall pushing the pads of my thumbs

against the damp, cool clay, trying to stretch it out,

then pressing it smooth into a thinning barrier to air…

I have some other pieces that will be published in two additional journals this spring. Stay tuned, and write on! ✍️

Photo courtesy of Photo by Patti Black on Unsplash.

My Food-Themed Article Published Today! 🍓

So happy that my latest article was published at Women on Writing today!

Fabulous Food Lingo and 5 Sumptuous, Savory Prompts to Try 

By Melanie Faith

Most writers are word lovers. We delight in the fun of stringing each little consonant cluster together. 

What might writers adore just as much as the flair of finding just the right synonym or antonym to tell our tales? What pairs well with an appetizer of theme and a garnish of motif and a heaping helping of diction choices with a fresh ooey-gooey slice of second-draft pie? 

Why, food, of course!

Food combines a topic that is both highly relatable and rigorously individualistic. Food writing promises: Sure, we’ve all had salad, but we’ve not all described this heavenly pasta salad from Café Romano on Spruce Street or that delectable BBQ Uncle Ross used to bring to every family function with a tangy sauce so top-secret aunts, uncles, and several second cousins are still trying to figure out and reproduce it (almost successfully) for each year’s reunion. 

Food is inextricably connected to memory, place, and time. Food is both growing up and growing into our better selves. 

Food is also undeniably literary. From Proust’s super famous madeleine to the descriptions of bread, cookies, and cakes (along with those mouth-watering photos) in your favorite print cookbooks or online recipes, food is tied to expression, especially self-expression in relation to our connections with others. Food is also the guilty pleasure stashed in the top or back shelf of the pantry (Shh…, I won’t tell). 

Yes, just like writing, the foods and meals we make, buy, and/or share (or keep for ourselves) provide endless possibilities for creativity—from the individual ingredients to the finished dish on the platter someone gave to great grandma so long ago no one knows where she acquired it but now this treasure is yours.  

We often speak of food enthusiastically in conversation with family and friends, so why not write about food the same way?

Try a few of these ideas the next time you’re searching for something to write and want to get words flowing in yummy formation:

Food-jar fiesta: Get a glass jar (recycled or new) and fill it with scraps of food phrases, one on each small piece of paper. Or page through a print cookbook for topic ideas. Love surprises? Get a friend, partner, child, or fellow writer to contribute ideas to the jar for you. Draw one scrap a week for a free-write. If you really enjoy choosing from the jar (like the best sweets, it can get kind of addictive), feel free to dip into it a few times a week. Once you’ve worked your way through the jar, reload it and write on!  

Make a food-word alphabet: Write A-Z down the left-hand side of a piece of paper. Quickly jot down any food-related word you can think for each letter. Feel free to do a second draft of this list where you use a search engine to add additional words to the list from recipes, cookbooks, or watching cooking shows. Keep this list handy at your desk for future free-writes.

The recipe nobody wants: Write down four or five places where people meet. Then, pick one as your setting. Write for fifteen minutes about a recipe that your character doesn’t want and that others don’t want to eat, and yet…circumstances or traditions dictate they must make and eat this dish. Include body language and some dialogue in a second draft. This prompt is great for exploring tone—from humor to dread—and an excellent way to practice describing various textures of foods we don’t enjoy. 

The nose knows: Write for 15 minutes about a food you would recognize anywhere, from smell alone. This is a great way to practice descriptive writing and making your readers hungry! 

Ask, and it’s yours: Write down a few food-related questions to ask someone in your family or friend circle. Conduct an informal interview where you supply the treats (or a favorite meeting-place does) and you take notes on your friend’s (and your own!) answers one afternoon. You can also do this exercise as a free-write and then swap each other’s answers to read aloud after writing. Some fun options may include: asking if they recall a favorite food or recipe from growing-up years and its origin; asking how, when, or where they learned to cook; asking them to describe a recipe they made that went wrong and what happened (be ready to laugh). This exercise can also be repeated at various times of year, with both longtime friends and new.

Also, check out my latest online writing class (beginning Friday, Oct. 10th): clickety-click.

Courtesy of Women on Writing.