Beth Carpenter Books

I’ve heard the best way to become a better writer is to write. That’s fine, as far as it goes, but writing the same thing over and over gets me nowhere. I need to hone my skills and try to get better with each book, each chapter. With this in mind, I’m always reading books, articles, and blogs on how to improve my writing. I often find lists of tips or rules. For example: Photo by Chance Agrella Ø       Never start with a dream sequence. Misleading your readers isn’t a good way to earn their trust. Ø       Amnesia is gimmicky, overdone, and unrealistic. Don’t use it. Ø       Let your reader get to know your main characters so that they will empathize with their struggles. I’ve just finished reading Dan Brown’s Inferno , and realized about 30% into the book he’d broken all three of these rules, as well as indulged in a little head hopping. We start off in a dream sequence, almost immediately r...

In our family, holidays tend to be a mix of tradition and new ideas, or at least variations on old ideas. Today, I’ve been preparing for Easter: making a pie, planning a menu, and dying eggs. I no longer have small children and no grandchildren yet, so nobody is too interested in dying eggs with me. I decided to try a natural dying method, which has the advantage of also saving a step. I hard-boiled these eggs as usual, but added the onion skins to the pan, purple in one and yellow in the other. I like the results. The colors are earthy rather than the customary pastel, but quite lovely. Surprisingly, the yellow onions seem to have more pigment, or at least dyed my eggs a much deeper color, than the purple. I’ll peel some of them tomorrow and make deviled eggs as an appetizer. There’s a certain irony to serving deviled eggs for Easter, but we can live with that. The rest of the eggs will probably appear in tuna salad later in the week, once the leftover turkey is gone. I’...