Author: Melinda Kucsera

Melinda Kucsera writes fantastic short stories, novels, and books when not being kidnapped by dragons or chased by armies of fictional creatures. (Her characters do, on occasion, rescue her.) She leaves the running of her newsletter to a cast of lovable characters who hog her inbox. Enough about her, it’s us you’re really interested in, her cast of characters. Join us every week for a new story at www.mkucsera.com/welcomecharacters. Over 15,000 readers have enjoyed their fight to survive and thrive as they straddle the often blurry line between fiction and reality. Let them take you on an adventure behind and between the scenes. Sign up at www.mkucsera.com/welcomecharacters to experience our weekly shenanigans. Go where no book or newsletter has gone before!
Uncategorized

Over Edited?

Melinda Kucsera

Is it possible to over edit a piece? If you removed all instances of the ‘to be’ verb, ‘ly’ words and filter words, are you left with an over edited piece? Or a polished gem? I ask because I wrote 1200 words last night without using a single ‘ly’ word, ‘to be’ verb or filter word. The scene has a tight grittiness that appeals to me but I can’t help wondering if I went too far. How can I tell if I went too far? Or is there no such thing as ‘over edited’? When does editing cease to be polishing what’s there … Continue reading Over Edited?

Uncategorized

Eliminating Filter Words

Melinda Kucsera

There’s a great post about filter words penned by Cecilia Lewis that I found thanks to a comment Aeryn Rudel left on my previous blog entry. (Thank you Aeryn and thank you Celia!) I’m adding filter words to my list of words that need to be sought out and destroyed. I was dithering over a few of them yesterday.  I thought it had something to do with the fact that I was reading the text aloud that made them sound jarring and out of place. Now I know why they bothered me. They pulled me out of the head of my character. I blame the … Continue reading Eliminating Filter Words

Audiobooks, punctuation, writing

Next up on the Copyedit Hit list is…

Melinda Kucsera

I have killed all three hundred and eighty words that end with ‘ly’. Yes those dreaded adverbs. In doing so, I found an alarming pattern. Here’s my top  ‘ly’ offenders, in order of assassinations: suddenly, actually, exactly and  finally. Now I know what to watch out for. What are yours top offenders? What ‘ly’ words sneak into your drafts while you’re typing? *** To reach the next level in my copyediting quest, I must now search out and destroy instances of ‘so’. This insidious word shows up too many times and I’m not going to take it anymore. I listened to … Continue reading Next up on the Copyedit Hit list is…

Audiobooks, punctuation, thank you, well wishes, writing

Killing Adverbs

Melinda Kucsera

Have you killed any adverbs lately? It’s very cathartic. Just run a search for ‘ly’ and see what you find. Why am I doing this? I bought a book on copyediting to aid me in my quest to copyedit my own work. Deleting words ending in ‘ly’ or replacing them with stronger verbs, claimed the book, as good way to tighten up writing. So a ran simple search on my Google Doc just to see how many ‘ly’ words I had used. I didn’t think there were that many because I know to avoid them. An eye-opening number of items returned in … Continue reading Killing Adverbs

Audiobooks, punctuation, thank you, well wishes, writing

Thank you for all the likes, follows, views and reads

Melinda Kucsera

Dear Reader, I hope you enjoyed your Sunday. Perfect weather we had in my corner of the world today and I hope in yours too. Today’s post is not a story post, and I apologize that I can’t provide your daily dose of fantasy fiction. I ran into some technical issues with the audio book recordings. A quick G-chat with my cousin helped me to see the error of my setup. An error I’m working to correct. Tonight I hope to do another take. (Who needs sleep?)  Cross your fingers that my neighbors will turn in early, and quietly, and … Continue reading Thank you for all the likes, follows, views and reads

Audiobooks

What did you read this week?

Melinda Kucsera

Well what did you read? I really do want to know. So leave me a comment and let me know. I’m asking this because I love stories and I’m always looking for something new to read, some new author’s works to fall in love with (in audio of course). I did mention somewhere on here that I am an audiobook addict right? Audible is my drug of choice. I can’t get enough of that site. I start my day off by checking the daily deals. Follow that up by skimming through the pre-orders and recent releases while munching on my … Continue reading What did you read this week?

poem, Sonnet

Divination – A Sonnet for Your Thoughts

Melinda Kucsera

  Divination And I lay sleeping, weaving a dead dream, a late nightmare where we played tarot cards stacked in two piles on headstones that gleam. In the cemetery where we played bards, by the waning light of the sun, singing, chanting spells, drawing cards that spoke of woe. Their words echoed across the graves, ringing softly, raising souls and bones row by row. Words uttered by plastic voices that rose and fell with the guttering candle flames, that let cards foretell our late repose when our children will invoke our sweet names, by our graves, drawing tarot cards whose … Continue reading Divination – A Sonnet for Your Thoughts

CoS Book 1, Curse Breaker, Fantasy, Mount Eredren, Sarn, Shayari

Breaking Curses

Melinda Kucsera

Sarn has a problem. His eyes glow green all the time due to a magic that’s slowly chewing away at his sanity. Sarn indentured himself to pay for his younger brother’s education and was assigned to the Rangers at sixteen. In the four years since then, he has built a tenuous and often strained relationship with his fellow Rangers. It doesn’t help that odd things happen around him all the time. Odd things that begin to add up into a terrifying whole… Continue reading Breaking Curses

garden

Attack of the Sluginator

Melinda Kucsera

I am the sluginator. I terminate slugs in my garden with extreme prejudice and a lot of stomping. Nothing like squishing those things before they eat my plants. It’s quite cathartic. If you have a slug problem like I do, don’t fret. You don’t have to buy nasty chemicals and risk poisoning the food you’re trying to grow. There’s a simple solution that I have found that’s natural. I ran across an article back when I first noticed the slugs that claimed that they can’t tolerate caffeine. After searching about to confirm this, I found post after post about fed … Continue reading Attack of the Sluginator

Audiobooks

Audiobook Round-up

Melinda Kucsera

What did you read this week? I fed my audiobook addiction with some great reads. I hope you did too. From the Higgs Boson to the blackgaurds of the fantasy to everyone’s favorite serial killer, this week’s offerings sent me on a wild literary ride. The Great Courses: Higgs Boson and Beyond Dive into particle physics. This series of lectures is for the arm chair physicist in you. It explains what the heck a Higgs Boson is and why countries spent millions of dollars to build a collider in the hopes of producing one. Prof Carroll is thoroughly entertaining as … Continue reading Audiobook Round-up

Uncategorized

Balance

Melinda Kucsera

While wracking up the points in one of the free rewards programs I indulge in, I ran across an interesting ad. It was for a site called http://www.mymixify.com. I didn’t watch the commercial. I usually ignore them but the last few seconds caught my attention.  Instead of showing the usual array of really unhealthy snacks, the screen showed almonds, containers of fresh fruit and other healthy goodies. Then it flashed up something about mixing it up and keeping it fresh. Short Attention Span (moi) went to the site to have a look-see. Apparently the site is sponsored by the major … Continue reading Balance

Audiobooks

The Challenge

Melinda Kucsera

Ok, I’m finally starting a blog. You can stop mentioning it now. Really. I got the point. I am taking the mental challenge (thanks Coleen Phoenixxx). Why am I blogging? Because people keep telling me to. They believe I have something that needs to be said. I finally got tired of telling them that everything I’d write about has already been written. So here I am blogging. I’m saying all the things that need to be said and I’m challenging myself to say those things right here every day. Right now this blog is not about anything in particular. That might … Continue reading The Challenge